Social media 'could be bought by telecoms companies'

Telecoms companies could be involved in the ownership of social media websites in the future, according to a web expert.

As social media could be described as communications platforms, it would not be a surprise if telecoms companies ended up buying them, according to an industry expert.

Leon Benjamin, Web 2.0 practitioner and author of Winning by Sharing, pointed out that social networking sites, such as Facebook and Twitter, are just another communication channel.

He suggested that in the future, when those companies mature and aim to consolidate, there is a lot of evidence to suggest that telecom firms may be involved.

Mr Benjamin explained: "The most mature market in social media is actually South Korea in terms of its reach, and it had a huge social website – Cyworld- which was actually bought by a Korean telecom company."

Recently PostRank released an online tool, which it claimed will allow companies to monitor the number of people who visit their social media web pages and find contextual information about how they get there.

02/10/2009