I read an interesting article/exploration by Danah Boyd on the releative successes of Friendster and MySpace. While it is more "anecdotal viewpoint" than classic research (which is what we are all pretty much doing online anyway), it has some interesting nuggets in it. Also - in many ways it is arguing a similar point that I made in the Increasing Tail - platforms who give their users tools to develop the tail end of content almost always win.