A Secret Worth Knowing About CGM

It's not a social network per say, yet most social networks have allowed it to be part of them. Photobucket, which is a site that allows users to search, upload and share pictures and videos, is a relative unknown in the social networking world, unless one perused the likes of MySpace or Facebook.

These sites allow users to link photos stored in Photobucket and place them on user pages. The secret to Photobucket's current success of 38 million members is linking, according to a Fortune article. Linking shelters the site from fads because if one social network falls the photos are still stored on Photobucket, and users can just place them on a different social network.

This brilliant business model has allowed the site a niche foothold in the consumer-generated media realm. Instead of competing with mega-sites like Facebook, Photobucket adds value by allowing more freedom to the user. Companies' sites need to find a way, like Photobucket did, to ward off threats of changing consumer preferences.