could it just be that MySpace gave its users too much freedom in page design and it turned into an ugly, blinking, unreadable, music auto-playing pile of s#it?
And then people left?
And then people left?
However, social networks do a pretty good job at segregating - as long as your friends are bourgeois and share your bourgeois design sensibilities, you can use MySpace without bumping into too much 'profile bling'.
Instead, it seems that some white and Asian kids of high socioeconomic status joined Facebook because it was associated with elite universities and therefore reflected their aspirations - and once this process started, people went where their friends were, self-segregating along racial and economic lines just like they do in high school (and throughout the rest of society.) Aesthetic tastes became a socially-acceptable justification for that move, but I don't think they were the primary cause.
That said, a good knowledge of the aesthetic preferences of various social groups could be valuable. Could a startup trigger a similar 'white flight' in an established service by intentionally appealing to the most economically valuable demographic? Can we build good niche businesses by creating things like race-specific Twitter clients?
Yes. And they'd be "niche" in the sense that Fox News is "niche." (Best comment on Fox ever: "They discovered a previously untapped market niche: half the country.")
Half the country, literally, is so far off the radar screen for most software companies it is embarrassing.
There are dating sites for every conceivable slice of the demographic pie. This applies to many other sites too, although I think a lot of folks don't realize it. (You guys know Demand Media because of their SEO strategy, not because they are dominating the Internet of interest to your demographic.)
Would it be ethical to do so?