Back in the 1990s, I got to meet the folks at Geocities, a site that allowed anyone to create a website. The site was chaotic – but that was the attraction. However, after Yahoo! (Nasdaq: YHOO) bought the company, Geocities drifted into irrelevance.

Well, after the dot-com bust, we saw a new group of creative online platforms emerge. But this time, there was an interesting twist; that is, users could connect with each other. It was an explosive idea, which catapulted some sites into the stratosphere.

Of course, one is MySpace. And, a top writer from the Wall Street Journal, Julia Angwin, has an excellent book on it, Stealing MySpace: The Battle to Control the Most Popular Website in America.

Launched in August 2003, MySpace was the brainchild of Chris DeWolfe and Tom Anderson (the site was almost named "YoPeeps"). Both were part of a struggling dot-com, eUniverse (which was eventually renamed Intermix) and wanted to find the next big idea. And they found it when they ran across Friendster, one of the first social networking sites.

So what to do? It was simple: copy it.

Tom Taulli is the author of various books, including The Complete M&A Handbook and The Edgar Online Guide to Decoding Financial Statements. He also operates MergerBook.com.

Most internet observers probably agree that the fight for dominance in the social network segment of the web is over News Corp's (NYSE: NWS) MySpace, the perpetual leader, and Facebook, which is coming along as a weak second and may be purchased by Yahoo! (NASDAQ: YHOO) to build its presence in the sector.

Still, the growth rate at Facebook and other social network sites is putting them back into contention. VentureBeat published statistics showing that in May, Facebook's audience was 47.2 million unique visitors, up from 38.8 million in April. Friendster's audience rose from 22.6 million to 24.7 million over the same period.

MySpace still has a clear lead with 109.5 million unique users. The growth of competition raises the question of what might happen if Yahoo! or MSN bought Facebook and Friendster. That would build an aggregate audience of almost 75 million unique visitors.

Figuring out how to make big money in social networks is still a problem. But Google (NASDAQ: GOOG) appears to drive a great deal of search traffic from MySpace, and heaven knows, Yahoo! and MSN could use more search engine traffic.

Douglas A. McIntyre is a partner at 24/7 Wall St.

Pity News Corp. (NYSE: NWS, NWS.A) spent half a billion dollars to buy MySpace, whose profitability rests solely on the attention span of teenagers. Google, Inc. (NASDAQ:GOOG) should take a lesson about its purchase of YouTube. Get your money while you can, because teenagers move on to the next cool thing with lightning speed.

Yuki Noguchi from The Washington Post, wrote last week that the popularity of MySpace, THE required teen social spot last year, is already plummeting in favor of Facebook. Not only purchasers, but advertisers as well, are betting they can predict the social behavior and coolness factors of teens. There aren't enough regression analysis models in all of econometrics to account for such irrational variables.

Xanga, the precursor to MySpace, was THE biggest site in 2003, averaging over 90 minutes per visit per user as teens developed and edited their online profiles or scoped out the profiles of others. In September 2006, the average viewing time of a Xanga profile was 11 minutes. The story is the same with Friendster, which averaged almost two hours of user time per visit in October 2003. In February 2006, average viewer time peaked at just over 3 hours. By September 2006, average viewing time was 7 minutes.

MySpace has already showed the beginnings of a decline in average viewer time. In October 2005, the average viewer time was almost 2 and a half hours. By October 2006, average time had slipped to 2 hours. The up and coming social network site is Facebook, which is still showing increases in average viewer time, now up to 70 minutes per visitor per month.

Among teens, there is very little in the way of brand loyalty. Mostly, teens crave innovation and new experiences within the confines of group experience. Given the increased scrutiny social network sites encounter from teachers and parents, as well as recent negative publicity caused by predators using MySpace, investors and advertisers can expect the next replacement social network site any minute. Too late, it's gone.

There's an interesting piece in the Washington Post about MySpace.com. The title says it all: "In Teens' Web World, MySpace Is So Last Year."

Actually, the author does not provide tangible proof that MySpace.com is going downhill.

No doubt, the site has had a stunning ascent, with over 124 million profiles – and grabbing $900 million from Google Inc. (NASAQ: GOOG). Hey, even if MySpace self-destructs, News Corp. (NYSE: NWS.A) will still have more than covered its initial $580 million purchase price.

However, the author brings-up some good points to consider:

• The history of social networking – especially when focused on teens – is volatile. Some of the prior leaders, such as Friendster and Xanga, are a fraction of their former success.
• There's the creep factor. The author interviewed a variety of teens who are afraid of weirdos who troll MySpace.
• Then there's the authority factor. That is, teachers often go on MySpace to see what their students are doing.
• Also, if key people in a teen's network moves to another site, then many others will follow. For example, a big source of users for MySpace were former users of Friendster.
• Most importantly: Teens bore easily.

Besides, when a site like MySpace gets into mainstream media, can it really be cool any more?

Tom Taulli is the author of various books, including the Complete M&A Handbook. He operates InvestorOffering.com.

The world of social-networking mimics the dating world. Things can move fast.

After all, just a few years ago, Friendster was the ultimate social networking site. But, of course, it lost its mojo and MySpace surged ahead to become the most trafficked site on the Web, even attracting $900 million from Google.

Well, Friendster's death has been widely exaggerated. In fact, according to a Wall Street Journal story today, the company snagged a cool $10 million. True, in the VC world, this is kind of small-time. But, it's enough to rev the engines some more. The most important thing is that the investors are the who's-who of the venture world: DAG Ventures, Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers and Benchmark Capital. These firms certainly don't like to waste time.

Something else that is telling: Friendster is not targeting MySpace's market or Facebook's. Think of Friendster as an older hang-out joint, for those 20 to 30 years old. Yes, this is a big category (and, more importantly, they have money). Simply put, it looks like MySpace has won the war for the sub-20 market.

Friendster has another trump card:

As I mentioned in my post about Blogher, AIM is where it's at for the sorts of people who use instant messenger programs to communicate. Not only do teenagers love the product, with all the spiraling viral effects that has for AOL, but I use it for work -- and many other businesses are becoming IM-savvy.

AIM, however, may have come to a bit of an innovation plateau -- the unit seems to be focusing on cuteness and personality rather than functionality. AOL needed to get working if the company wished to expand into the nether reaches of instant communication and electronic networking. Today's announcement of the company's acquisition of Userplane (for an undisclosed sum) underscored Time Warner's dual strategies in this market, which are (1) dominate and innovate and (2) do it by acquisition, whenever possible.

Userplane CEO Mike Jones says the company will remain a separate unit, and the company's venture capitalist lauds Userplane for having been cashflow positive "for a long time." Userplane brings a very strong position in the dating and social networking market, and it's oh-so-Web 2.0. According to TechCrunch, Userplane "uses Flash and Ajax to offer video, audio and text chat in the browser, in single or multiple chat rooms. Those video and audio chats can be recorded using the company's Webrecorder application."

For the MySpace generation, there are some common questions, such as:  "What is an album?" "What were typewriters used for?"  "What was Friendster?"

In another Internet era – that is, a few years ago – Friendster was the cool hang-out for the hip young crowd.

Of course, young people can be fickle.  Now, the cool hangouts are MySpace and Facebook.  In fact, MySpace is now the #1 Web site in the US – having bypassed mighty Yahoo! Looking at social-networking market share, MySpace commands about 80%.

However, Friendster is not giving up.  Rather, it is doing what many tech dinosaurs do; yes, get patents. Recently, the company was granted a patent on, well, social networking systems.

Given the money at stake, it is almost guaranteed that Friendster will start filing lawsuits against the big players.  True, such litigation is expensive and time-consuming.  But, it does help with PR and may, over the next few years, result in a pay off.  Look at what happened to RIMM, which paid over $600 million in a patent dispute over its Blackberry.

Yes, the concern about social networking is trying to find a way to monetize it.  Maybe we now have the answer:  lawsuits.