Who's who in social networking

To help marketers understand the quickly evolving world of social networking, UK firm The Future Laboratory has identified six user categories, B&T reports.

In summary, these are:

Essentialists - use social networking predominantly to stay in touch with friends and family (the largest group)

Netrepreneurs - enterprising individuals who use social networking to bolster their incomes

Connectors - people who use Facebook or MySpace primarily to pass on interesting links to others in their network

Transumers - users who consume online content rather than create the content themselves

Collaborators - people who work in groups to create events, ideas and activities

Scene breakers - use social networking to find new and emerging social scenes