Potential Membership Size

We believe that online search and networking communities will benefit greatly from online trends favoring finding and meeting people with similar interests on the internet. This is evident by the following.

1. According to a Lycos survey, online dating is soaring in popularity and is increasingly Mainstream. The survey which found that 59 percent of users polled said that they are likely or very likely to join an online dating service, compared to 29 percent two years ago. Only 12 percent said they’d advertise in the newspaper personals.

2. Online dating services are among fastest growing segment on the internet. A study by Jupiter Research found that in 2002, users spent $228 million for online dating services. By the end of 2003, that amount is projected to grow to $313 million.

3. Over 36 million resumes are posted on Monster.com from individuals seeking jobs.

4. A research conducted by Perseus expects the number of hosted blogs (personal web logs) created to exceed five million by the end of 2003 and to exceed ten million by the end of 2004.

SocialGrid was founded to support the above trends and more importantly, to provide services in a cost-effective manner. Aside from SocialGrid members with profile pages, anyone who has a web page that is indexed by Google (and other Internet search engines) can be a potential member.

A 100 million plus potential membership base exists. Examples of possible members may include:

1. AOL members - 26 million+ members (each member is offered a free home page)
2. Other Internet Service Provider that offers free home pages.
3. Blogs - 4.7 million+
   • Blogger - 1.5 million
   • LiveJournal - 700,000
   • Xanga - 2.5 million
4. Personal Page Communities
   • GeoCities - 4 million members
   • Tripod/AngelFire - 32 million members
5. Instant Messenger Networks-ICQ, AIM, MSN, Yahoo
6. College student home pages
7. Social Networking Communities
   • MySpace - 70 million+ members
   • Friendster - 27 million+ members
   • Tribe.net - 58,000 members
   • Tickle (e-Mode)- 1 million+ members
   • LinkIn - 5.5 million members
   • Ryze
8. Association or club web sites
9. Web address registery services - they usually offer a few web pages for free.
10. P2P Telephony
    • Skype - 100 million downloads