It was a mixed year for social networking sites, which began the year with a bang. Social media sites like MySpace, BigAdda, Ibibo, Orkut and Facebook firmed up operations while sites like Yahoo Mash, popularly touted as competitor to Facebook, shut shop in September 2008 after a year of being launched.

Earlier too, Yahoo had shut its experimental social network sites like Mixd and Yahoo 360, within some months of inception.

Around 20 million Internet users actively use the social media sites in India. According to market research firm IDC, the use of social networking sites will continue to grow, but advertising may not necessarily expand along with it. the result is that Indian start-ups like Ibibo and BigAdda are innovating to get brands onto their networks. 2009 might turn out to be the year when marketers will realise the potential of cross-promoting their media buys on the social networking Websites.

"Local marketers are becoming familiar with the best ways to promote their businesses and by crossing online and offline campaigns, they are getting more bang for their buck," said Shivanandan Pare, COO, BigAdda that commenced operations 15 months back. The brands that are promoting themselves on BigAdda include Nokia, Lenovo, Sony Ericsson and Intel among others.

Analysts also believe that voice search in social networks will begin to boom in 2009. Currently, voice search is still in the beginning stages but platforms like Google, Vlingo and Tellme are paving the way to more consumers' mobile devices. BigAdda nurtures similar plans too.

"There are plans of getting Adda, content and mobile blogs on to the MobileAdda platform and we are also working towards something on the voice platform, beta testing of which is on. It will be the next big thing that everyone will keep talking about for long," promises Pare of BigAdda.

Ibibo, which calls itself a 'talent based social networking site', is willing to bet that 2009 would be the year when targeting consumer on social sites will have a far bigger payout than any other media. Ashish Kashyap, CEO, Ibibo, has built traction for his site among the 14-28 year olds by running talent-based contests since its inception.

Recently, Ibibo tied up with Yash Raj Films to launch a Rab Ne Bana Di Jodi application where a video featuring Shah Rukh Khan urges users to share their talent - be it acting, dancing, singing or mimicry on the site.

"Such promotions and brand campaigns would be a major revenue earner for us in 2009," says Kashyap. After just a year and a half of operations, Ibibo claims to have 31 lakh (3.1 million) registered users, growing at an average 40 per cent month-on-month basis.

IDC reveals that social networking sites need to prove ad effectiveness, "and the only way to fix it is to get people to do stuff on social networks other than communicate," reports IDC. This means encouraging activities that readily lend themselves to advertising such as sharing media, consuming media, playing games and collaborating on applications.

BigAdda is already carefully positioning its platform as a branding solution provider. "We are pitching advertisers to use BigAdda.com for brand building activities, rather than just carrying out lead generation and returns on investment driven campaigns," insists Pare.

Meanwhile, international players like MySpace are trying to build on their user base in India by experimenting with various social platforms. With a new service called Data Availability, MySpace users can share their public profile data with other websites like Yahoo, Twitter, eBay, and Photobucket, where users can exercise control over what information is to be shared. MySpace's mobile version, which was launched for Blackberry users, touched 1 million download mark within a month of its launch.

Hari Krishnan, country manager, MySpace India, feels confident that mobile could be the trick for them. He says, "We will invest heavily in mobile building a mobile platform for Indian users."

Mobile remains a central element of MySpace's global business strategy, providing a new channel for users to connect with each other and for advertisers to target a highly engaged audience, adds Krishnan.

Facebook too announced a similar platform, called Facebook Connect, following MySpace's announcement. Facebook's also hopes to allow its users to link their Facebook identity to various social media across the Web.