When most of us hear the term “social networking,” our minds immediately jump to the big three: Facebook, MySpace and Twitter. Combined, these three sites serve over half a billion users and drive a sizeable amount of the Internet’s traffic. What many of us don’t realize is that the web is filled with social media behemoths, many of which pass below the radar of the mainstream. We’ve compiled a list of the largest social networking sites that haven’t quite caught on in America.
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Qzone
Number of users: 200,000,000+
Created by Tenecent in 2005, Qzone is a bit like a Chinese MySpace, except most of the services are not free. I went to check it out for myself, but unfortunately my Chinese is a bit rusty and I couldn’t translate anything. According to Wikipedia “Users can set their Qzone background and select accessories based on their preferences so that every Qzone is customized to the individual member's taste. However… only after buying the "Canary Diamond" can users access every service without paying extra. A mobile version is available at extra cost.” According to Tenecent, 150 million Qzone users update their accounts at least once a month, making Qzone one of the most active social networks in the world.
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Orkut
Number of users: 100,000,000+
Google employee Orkut Büyükkökten created the social network that bears his name back in 2004. When it was originally launched, membership was by invitation only and growth was expected to occur via word of mouth. U.S. members comprised much of the user base for the first year. However, Brazilian users were more active and eventually surpassed the number of American users. Since the Brazilian users overwhelmingly communicated in, well, Portuguese, much of the American user base migrated to MySpace and Facebook. Orkut is now hugely popular in Brazil (51% of the user base) and India (20%). American users still comprise about 17% of the user base, but Orkut gets virtually no mainstream recognition here.
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Hi5
Number of users: 80,000,000+
Launched in 2003, Hi5 offers many of the same features as Facebook and MySpace. Users create profiles and can add photos, play games, listen to music, connect with friends and more. In late 2008, digital marketing intelligence company comScore found that Hi5 was the world’s third most popular social networking site based on unique monthly visitors. Oddly enough, despite being developed for, and headquartered in the U.S., Hi5 is hugely popular outside America. Latin American users comprise the largest portion of the user base, but users in India, Mongolia, Romania, Thailand and parts of Central Africa are also quite prevalent.
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Vkontakte
Number of users: 75,200,000+
Also known as the “Russian Facebook,” Vkontakte has much of the same look and feel as Facebook. So much so, in fact, that one of the biggest criticisms of the platform is that it is a direct clone of Facebook in terms of both its interface and business model. However, VK does distinguish itself by experimenting with new features. For example, VK allows users to host audio files (Facebook doesn’t) and a function allowing one to express personal thoughts about a friend on the network anonymously.
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Badoo
Number of users: 68,000,000+
When Badoo was launched in May 2006, it was intended to be a multi-lingual site where users could meet and chat with others in their area. What sets Badoo apart from most other social networking sites in this regard is that it operates more like a dating site than a “keep in touch with friends” site. TopTenReviews called Badoo “a chat room, dating site and picture rating site disguised as a social network.” Users can gain prominence through a paid “Rise Up” feature and have their profile shown first to other users searching the area.
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Netlog
Number of users: 65,135,925
Netlog (formerly Facebox, formerly Bingbox) was developed in Belgium and specifically targets the European youths. Since its 2003 launch, the site has gained over 65 million users spanning 25 languages. Much of the site’s functionality is similar to Facebook and MySpace, however where Netlog really shines is its localization capability. This technology ensures that all content is geotargeted and personalized to each member’s profile, enabling users to see only the content that they would find most interesting.
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Odnoklassniki
Number of users: 45,000,000+
Odnoklassniki is Russian for “classmates.” This is appropriate, since Odnoklassniki is the Russian analog to American social networking site Classmates.com. Users can reconnect with old classmates and keep in touch with current ones using standard social media tools. Since March of 2006, Odnoklassniki has attracted over 45 million users, serves 10 million users daily, and is the sixth most popular site in Russia.
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CyWorld
Number of users: 24,000,000
South Korea leads the world in Internet connections per capita, so it’s no wonder how South Korean social network CyWorld was able to amass over 24 million users in just a few short years. By 2006, it was estimated that practically every South Korean in their 20’s and 25% of the total population were users of the service. Today, closer to 45% of the total population uses the service – that’s more than Facebook’s penetration in the US. In addition to a MySpace-like homepage, users can have avatars and small, decorate-able “apartments” (very much like the Sims). CyWorld also generates revenue by selling virtual acorns, which can then be used to buy other virtual goods.
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Geni.com
Number of users: 15,000,000
Private start-up company Geni, Inc. launched Geni.com as a social network with a twist. Users submit names, email addresses and other bits of biographical information for themselves and their relatives, and the service builds a comprehensive family tree. The concept allows people to network with members of their family, find distant relatives and more. Between January 2007 and September 2008, the site had gained over two million users, who created more than 80 million profiles for their family members.
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Buzznet
Number of users: 10,000,000
What sets Buzznet apart from its online competitors is that members participate in communities based on ideas, events and interests – typically, this involves celebrities, music and the media. Users post photos, videos, blogs, etc, and tag them appropriately. These nodes appear in “tag pages” – pages that contain all of the nodes that have the same tag. Each photo, video, link, blog entry, etc can receive “buzz” from other users; users with the most buzz and the most posted content are recognized throughout the site.
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There are literally dozens of huge social networks out there, and distilling it down to a top ten took some doing. So, how did we do? Anyone we should have included but didn’t? Let us know in the comments!
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