Wanna Get Away?

I know I do! Finally, a niche social network that get's it! Matador is a great online community for people across the globe that are passionate about culture and travel. It incorporates all the basic features: profiles, blogs, photos, and articles, while also providing users with travel classifieds, Google maps, tips, and user recommendations. As one article points out, there are ways the site could be improved, but overall it seems to be a great community--and it definitely has me excited for my upcoming trips abroad.


However, what I think is most important to think about with this is the fact that Matador is a niche social network. This makes targeting users with advertisements and promotions much easier. As I was looking at some of the advertising on the site I noticed that a lot of it did not even feel like business promotions as much as site-friendly suggestions.

Ta-da, it's the permission marketing concept in action once again!

In niche communities it is much easier to implement a permission-marketing scheme. That's why I feel niche web-based communities are the future of social networking, especially those like Matador that encourage impassioned discussion among users. Perhaps these niche communities will all one day be integrated through one service so they are easier to keep track of, but they will still be the communities of the future--and I believe they will help generate more promotional success than other social networks.