The devil is in the long tail

Tonight I met a former colleague/friend who is about to change jobs... He will join Netlog, a social networking site with more than 30 million users and made in Belgium! There is more to Belgium than chocolate and beer so it seems... OK, not as big as Facebook with 60 mil, Myspace with 110 mil but bigger than Linkedin with roughly 15 million members - Netlog put Belgium on the map again. We may not know how to manage our political communities but we surely know how to do this with our online ones.

I believe that Netlog has a great potential thanks to its localization approach: they support all major European languages which is a good move if you're targeting specific target groups like teens or 50+. These audiences do not necessarily have a good understanding of English - and easy and "native" goewies will definitely lower the threshold for joining these online communities (ease of use and ease of access).

But how much bleeping accounts do you have to create to keep in synch with all the new and improved? I can't wait for the launching of a social networking site that allows me to keep track of my memberships to other social networking sites... Apparently, Alchemist Google already has the magical recipe with its "Friend Connect" which allows you to integrate data from prevailing networking sites. This leads me to my point of today: What is the long tail of these networking sites? For those that have been on another planet the last couple of years:

Chris Anderson's Long Tail is One of The Marketing buzzwords of the last ears. In layman language the long tail is about leveraging your existing distribution model (preferably online) to sell small volumes of niche products to a large group of people instead of selling a smaller number of high volume items but restricted by popularity. Actually it is Paretto's law into online practice: you generate 20% of the profit by turning over 80% of your stock but buy selling niche products (@ 20% of your stock) you can cash in the remaining 80%. Inventory costs will be a determining factor for calculating your chances to increase your profitability but still, you get the underlying thought.

So, the distribution model is there i.e. the social networking platform and the niche products can be defined in terms of interest groups, communities, channels and the like. When it comes to niche products, I will certainly vote for taltopia as most original and long tail favorite.
I quote : Taltopia is a community site for those of us who have talent. Ehrrmm... right, why work if you can claim your fame. And we all have talent, don't we? Is this the long tail of Social Community sites.. People who have talent will probably not even bother with online networking as they are networking in real life, with real people.
Anyway, where will this mushrooming end? This is like wanting to meet your friends for a beer but every single one of them is located in another pub... In the end, you manage to see all of them but it takes a bloody time and it is not really that social, is it?

Any thoughts on this? A peanut for your thoughts...