Quote for the Week: "If you make customers unhappy in the physical world, they might each tell 6 friends. If you make customers unhappy on the Internet, they can each tell 6,000 friends." - Jeff Bezos
 

Social networks online with a business orientation diminished with the astronomic growth of consumer-driven platforms like Facebook and Twitter. These served to cultivate broad acceptance of the principles of social networking in business, making it more popular among business professionals.  
 

Than along came LinkedIn with a more professional networking model that has amassed a worldwide membership of 332 million. LinkedIn is of course the biggest network for business in history. Not only is it the most successful business-oriented platform, LinkedIn acts as an umbrella to more than two million groups and subgroups for a vast array of business needs.
 

While LinkedIn effectively serves a horizontal market of business people in all sectors, and to a certain extent accommodates the needs of vertical markets, the acknowledged lack of commercial benefits to professionals is spurring a new generation of business communities extraneous to the LinkedIn sphere..

The emerging communities are referred to as ‘Vertical Social Networks’, ‘Vertical Professional Networks’, or simply described as Vertical Networks’. These are now attracting increasing numbers of investment and interest. However, most are still grappling with models of generating revenue and few have reportedly reached profitability.
 

Speculation is abuzz that major corporate players in technology, finance and media are vetting some Vertical Networks as future acquisition targets. And, among the most likely gobblers of Vertical Networks is none other than LinkedIn itself.
 

A glimpse at what is on the horizon can be found in this new White Paper here: http://bit.ly/verticalnetworks