Synovate surveyed 13,000 consumers in 17 countries and, as reported by eMarketer, found that 58 percent of adults in these countries (Brazil, Bulgaria, Canada, France, Germany, India, Indonesia, Japan, the Netherlands, Poland, Russia, Serbia, Slovakia, South Africa, Taiwan, the United Arab Emirates (UAE) and the United States) were NOT familiar with social networking.

42 percent of adults did know about social networking and 26 percent belonged to social networking sites.

More interesting to me was another finding: of the 26 percent of adults who belonged to one or more social networks, 36 percent said they were “losing interest” in social networks. Indeed, 55 percent of Japanese users were losing interest, followed by users in Slovakia (48 percent), Canada (47 percent), Poland (45 percent) and the U.S. (45 percent).

eMarketer predicts that 44.3 percent of U.S. Internet users will belong to social networks by the end of 2008. But I wonder if, despite exploding growth in other countries, 2009 may be the year that U.S. social network membership peaks… after which growth plateaus and total social network membership stabilizes.

I suggest this because (a) social network membership growth has softened in the U.S. - the number of users has grown by just 9 percent between June 2007 and June 2008, and (b) the nature of social networking seems to be such that it will ultimately only appeal to certain kinds of Internet users.

Many people who “try” social networking may find that spending hours on one or more social networks - creating profiles, joining groups, making friends, exchanging messages, sharing images, movies, music, etc - just doesn’t fit into their lifestyle.

Having said that, I think there’s still plenty of growth potential among niche social networks. And you can pretty much include discussion boards in that category too, since many of them have either morphed - or are morphing into - fully fledged social networks. (What is a discussion board or forum but the original version of a social network?)

Source: eMarketer, “Social Networks Are Not Yet Universal”, eMarketer, September 3, 2008, Anna Johnson, “Facebook Is World’s Biggest and Fastest Growing Social Network”, August 14, 2008