Social networking sites are evolving, apparently. Two weeks ago, SearchEngineWatch.com reported that popular social networking site Facebook has forged a partnership with Buy.com to create Garage Sale, a new video classifieds engine. Garage Sale will allow users of the social networking site to create videos for the things they want to sell.

This latest move [of Facebook] is more of a partnership, and one that makes sense, as video can be seen as a natural extension of online classifieds (especially in visually oriented categories such as real estate and autos), wrote Michael Boland, a senior analyst with the Kelsey Group’s Interactive Local Media program, and a contributor to the Search Engine Watch Blog.

This follows Facebook’s partnership with classifieds aggregator Oodle in May to bring classifieds to college campuses (Facebook’s sweet spot), which also makes a lot of sense, given the turnover of goods (books, bicycles, couches) and apartments in the average college town.

Given that majority of Facebook users are in university or high school, a technology-savvy demographic that uses online video, the merging of classifieds, video, and social networking in Garage Sale will harmonize well in this environment.

Many of these improvements, if integrated into Facebook, could continue to attract MySpace users and make the current domineering social network solidify its lingering position amongst social networking faithfuls as so 2005, Boland added. And given the herd mentality present in social networks, it only takes a few to lead, and the rest will eventually follow.

Given their progressive development strategy, Facebook could well take the lead over MySpace if it continues to keep bringing such unique innovation into the fold. Rather than depending on the staying power of their need to stay connected to friends, they have utilized a constantly evolving product to keep users around.

Through this innovation we can expect to see, among other things, many more locally oriented tools developed in the areas of classifieds, video, local merchant advertising and others that will develop or could even be invented under the Facebook umbrella, writes Boland.