There are big social network sites who dominate marketspace for social network users who still struggling to make big money. For eg. Facebook, Youtube, digg. And those big sites have few humdred million users each. As will be evident now, it is not easy to monetise social sites. So for small social network site how many users do you need before you can start making profit?
I don't really think that there's any set number. I think that it has to do with the amount of traffic that you get coming to your site.
My SN website start turn profit when my member base reach 100. Each of them pay membership fee $10/month. Its more than enough to cover the cost of running SN website.
It probably depends on your niche. Facebook, they were negative by the masses until just last year I think. misshappy: sites like linkedin .
You will struggle going up against facebook and all the other Social networking sites. You're going to need something incredibly awesome to bring in more visitors than they do. One way to bring in some money would be to get some really good content, create a whole heap of fake accounts to make it look like a thriving community and charge other users some sort of membership fee.
Some SN sites have basic membership which is free and then you can upgrade your membership to have access to more things. Someone correct me if I'm wrong but I thinnk LinkedIn is like that.
quality and quantity go hand in hand..make sure that you reach right target group and those traffic you getting are potential to your business.
I got the same question. Would people pay $10 for SN site? Well maybe if yours are 100 times better than Facebook.