Mediaboss Marketing

Facebook (Getty Images)

With over one billion users worldwide, you'd think that Facebook pretty much has a lock on social networking online.

It's true that the Palo Alto, California-based tech giant is still our go-to place to connect with friends and family online. Facebook isn't going away anytime soon.

That being said, there's more than a few people out there that think Facebook's not working so well.

Criticism of Facebook has grown considerably over the past year, with complaints ranging from the site being much more interested in investors than a great user experience, or that user privacy is becoming decidedly (and unnervingly) less important to Facebook's management team.

But what's the most troubling complaint? Facebook isn't cool anymore.

In response to these claims, there's some tech entrepreneurs that have decided to use the one element that made Facebook so valuable in its early days at Harvard University exclusivity and apply it to their own start-up businesses.

These businesses are so-called niche social networks. They're sites that take a person's need to connect with others online and cater directly to a very specific interest, community or lifestyle.

Of course, there's plenty of reasons to get excited about the possibilities of these sites, once you consider the major ways in which they differ from Facebook.

They're often more sensitive to a specific part of the world

Read more:
Four reasons to go beyond Facebook for social networking