Let The Social Networking Deadpool begin..

Will the cream rise to the top?

Will the companies with a good business model be the ones to survive?

How will this all go down?

In the last two weeks:

Pownce will no longer exist .

Facebook made a play for Twitter.

Are these the signs of what is to come?

Now in all fairness the company was acquired and key employees will move over to Six Apart. This got me thinking, who are the next social networking companies that we will see absorbed?  Will it be Plurk? Brightkite? Tumblr? Identi.ca?

Are these companies even making money?

I took this question to Linkedin, a site I think will survive, and here are some of the responses. I will put them in list form, because people like lists:

Pierre-Loïc Assayag:

“No doubt that there will be many more. Any company that has been caught between rounds of funding and doesn’t have the ability to quickly replace venture money by revenue is in deep trouble.
That said I don’t buy into any of the dooming predictions around social media, quite the opposite, this crisis may well accelerate the transition to a post mass media era and as my grand ma’ told me “what doesn’t kill you makes you stronger”: those who survive will have figured out ways to build a strong business.”

Octavio Ballesta:

“I don´t think so. Social networks will survive and will grow healthier during the recession.

I envision that most of the social networks sites will disappear due to the high fragmentation of the market and to the difficulty of being profitable for the long term, and that bigger networks will have a strong growth, particularly those social networks oriented to professional themes like Linkedin.

In these times of economic recession where higher rates of unemployment will encourage the intensive development of initiatives of personal branding, tools like thematic blogs and social networks as Linkedin, will be the preferred tools to create a solid reputation in the network that help to these professionals to be hired again.

In the next years Linkedin will prove be even more useful and cost-efficient than any of the typical job boards like Monster or Careerbuilder to search quickly and precisely for talent to be hired. As a consequence of these competitive pressures job boards to remain competitive surely will include in the short term some of the features that are characteristic from social networks in order to enhance their audiences, features, capabilities and customer satisfaction.

Linkedin has the advantage that both recruiters as active and passive job applicants can belong freely to this professional network and propitiate so, different kind of interactions, promote personal branding, share knowledge and achieve visibility.”

Ari Herzog:

“Keep in mind this “recession” was around for a year. Pownce was doomed for failure long before Twitter bought Summize, though Twitter’s popularity helped Pownce’s loss. Tumblr and Posterous will survive; Jaiku is doubtful.

Like others responded, some will stay and some will go. Ultimately it’s about the people. If enough people like something, it will stay. If more than enough people continue to join, the network will innovate, such as Facebook Connect, Typepad Connect, and LinkedIn Applications.

If anything, new tools will be created rather than current ones closing shop.”

What do you think?