SOCIAL networking websites are all the craze today, but a university expert says it is important they maintain a sense of community if they are to continue to thrive.

Today, Facebook and Twitter are fighting it out for the title of the world's most popular social networking site.

According to Swinburne University media and communications lecturer Lisa Gye, Twitter is "a bit like a party when everyone's talking at once".

"Things circulate in a weird way where people talk about a topic and then there's a diversion and then they talk about another."

She said Facebook was more broad-based now than when it first started.

"It offers facilities like photo upload, video upload and sharing content."

However, Facebook is not just for Generation Y, with an increasing number of middle-aged and older people using the website.

"As more and more people inhabit the space, younger people, as they do, will want to find their own space and a place where they can talk privately."

Once the most popular social networking website, MySpace has lost popularity. Ms Gye said the corporatisation of the site and increase in advertising had resulted in more young people looking for alternatives.

She said the technology would continue to change rapidly but the drive remained the same.

"The common denominator in all of this is communities and building communities and connections. I can't see Facebook lasting 100 years, but what will always last, and has lasted for millennia, is that drive towards connection and community."