Social community can be money but it needs to be private and socially exclusive

Is this the magical formula for making an online community pay its way?

The Huffington Post reports that ASMALLWORLD

has reported an 11% increase in ad revenue from Q1 to Q2 and plans to be profitable by Q4. This remarkable turnaround — the site laid off 40% of its staff last fall — is all the more surprising given the downturn in the advertising market and the debate lingering over the profitably of social networking sites as a whole.

But before we all rush out and copy the model,one thing to bear it mind,

It describes itself as a private international community of culturally influential people who are connected by three degrees