To Build Audience, Facebook Lets Users Take the Wheel

CEO Mark Zuckerberg is encouraging users to create new Facebook features. (By Paul Sakuma -- Associated Press)

Some Web companies are betting instead on a strategy of creating small, loyal communities.

Michelle Mullin, a Phoenix-area mother, tried MySpace but instead started a site a few weeks ago on iVillage, which is devoted to women's issues. Her goal was to communicate with other people who, like her, experience epileptic seizures or with parents of kids who suffer from them.

"MySpace just wasn't for me," said Mullin, 39, who so far has 10 members on her new site. "I tried it for several months and ended up canceling my account."

Sites like Mullin's prove that people want to interact with others who have common interests, said iVillage president Deborah Fine. Similar sites are popping up elsewhere: people with spouses in the military, moms who want to quit smoking and fans of "Grey's Anatomy."

"We call it social networking with a purpose," Fine said. "Our users wanted us to give them a place where they could connect in a deeper way. They see MySpace as a place where their children are."

The goal for some smaller sites, like Eons for users in their 50s and up, is to expand to the older, wealthier demographic attractive to advertisers. The narrow focus of the sites also makes it far easier for marketers to target their ads.

Glee, a site that primarily targets gay men and lesbians, sold out on advertising before it launched this year, said Benjamin Sun, chief executive of Community Connect, which also runs other ethnically targeted sites such as BlackPlanet, MiGente and AsianAvenue. Travel companies can aim ads at gay and lesbian travelers, for example, just as wireless phone companies can use MiGente, a site for Hispanics, to target their ads to an ethnic group that tends to spend more on phone services.

"It's not about being on a site with the most people but about being on the site with the right people, the people you most likely want to connect with," Sun said.