Ask YC: What do you think of niche social networks?

I would stay away from a couple of things. One is the "social network" label. Personally I think it's overused and it's meaning is starting to expand (I think a 1990 BBS would qualify as a social network today).

You might have a hard time with niche social networks. The primary reason being that the bigger players are building tools to allow folks to roll their own networks. So the chances are users won't want to get an account for every single niche network and prefer to stick to something from within the larger networks they belong to.

Depending on the exact niche market and just how special your site has to be for that niche market compared to the generic sites you might still have a good shot at building something useful. I would prefer some label like "community" over "social network" though.

I think del.icio.us, flickr, last.fm are great examples of community driven sites that serve a niche market.

Things like "social network for wine lovers" I think are likely to fail.

I think the answer really depends on the niche you want to go after. Do XBox360 fans need another social network login/pass to remember? I'd assume not, a Facebook community probably would be easier for them.

But, I'd also assume that there are viable opportunities out there that, by the nature of the niche, would function better as an isolated specialty site. Things like a social network for elementary school children would make sense in that context.

Connectedness to the things that matter to me is like oxygen.

I think websites that connect people to ideas and people they care about will only grow in importance and popularity as more and more hackers get the little things right (user experience), and implementing these as features of a site becomes easier and cheaper (less time and money) so that more sites can be driven by those with the best connections and insight into their community, rather than by those who happen to have the right tech skills.

At least, I hope this is what happens. It can be a lonely world out here. There are few things as important (and, for many, as difficult) as finding the right people and information to surround yourself when you exit "the system" and are faced with crafting your life experience all on your own.

The internet may already have come a long way, but I think this is just the beginning.

I think you need to distinguish between a niche social network and a niche community. Social networking is effectively a specific bundle of features (profiles, friend/ buddy-lists) but there are a raft of social features that can be deployed as part of a community that may be more effective. For example, whilst a social network for sports fans might not work, some kind of wiki/ digg combination might be killer.

I think we don't need just another social network. Do you know about identity crash problem (http://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=identity+cras...)?

We need some bridge between websites and social networks. some kind of cross-site copy-paste technology.

One challenge is that niche networks by definition are not going to be as large as general networks. So they won't generate enough advertising revenue. And unfortunately, most networking sites are solely dependent on advertising.