Today almost everyone is a member of at least one online social network, demonstrated by Facebook which has over 500 million members, but not all social networks are thriving, in fact many are dying or have died (Wauters). There are several potential causes, but of these the ones that may prove to be the most widespread are uncontrollable exponential growth, niche market narrowing and lack of innovation and renewal. Social networking sites have been established as an online environment where people who share “personal or professional interests, place of origin, education in a particular school, etc.” can connect (“social networking”). The most popular examples of these web communities are MySpace and Facebook, but these are just genetic mutations of their predecessors. One of, if not, the first social networking sites was SixDegrees.com, founded in 1997, and over the next five-plus years many more would appear, most notably Friendster (Boyd and Ellison 5). Friendster's popularity soared thanks to media coverage, peaking with being listed second on Time magazine's 50 Coolest Websites list (Buechner). The growth that followed this media coverage was unexpected by Friendster, meaning that their systems were not equipped to handle the volume of traffic generated. When browsing the Internet, the most frustrating experience, especially in the early twenty-first century, was the loading time. Frustration with loading time would decrease significantly from 2002 to 2005, when the average user's ability to connect at speeds of 1Mbps or higher increased by nearly 25% ("Survey: Internet Connection Speeds"). Friendster users became aware of their inability to handle user volume as connection speeds increased....... middle of paper ......work CitedWauters, Robin. “Zuckerberg Makes It Official: Facebook Reaches 500 Million Members.” July 21, 2010: Web. July 21, 2011. "social networking." Dictionary.com. Dictionary.com, 2011.Web. August 4, 2011.Boyd, Danah M. and Nicole B. Ellison. "Social Networking Sites: Definition, History, and Studies.." Journal of Computer-Mediated Communication 13.1 (2007): 0-19. Network. July 21, 2011. http://jcmc.indiana.edu Buechner, MarryAnne Murray. “Tech Time: 50 Most Interesting Websites.” Time Magazine June 2004: n. page Network. August 4, 2011. http://time.com"Survey: Internet connection speed." kdnuggets.com (2005). Surveys. Network. August 4, 2011. http://www.kdnuggets.comBoutin, Paul. "How Google+ Will Balkanize Your Social Life" Tech Review: The Authority on the Future of Technology. MIT, July 11, 2011. Web. August 25, 2011. http://www.technologyreview.com