Mapping Social Networks World Wide

November 3rd, 2007 by Dr. Taly Weiss

Filed under facebook, internet behavior, mobile web, myspace, social networking, Trend Spotting Behavior

Social networks have a strong local and cultural dependency. On the time MySpace was becoming a global leader, it wasn’t strong enough to establish a local presence in countries outside the US.
I tried to gather different reports to map SN around the globe and have revised Valleywag world’s map. You are most welcome to send me updated information and status as those were very hard to find.

MySpace leads the world by numbers, accounts for 73% of social networking worldwide, available now in about 20 countries. MySpace tops US social-networking sites with 58.6 million unique visitors in September. Currently MySpace leads in most European countries as well as in Australia (3.8 million Australian profiles).
Facebook currently dominates in the UK and Canada, takes strongholds in the Middle East; Facebook (unlike MySpace) is still enjoying a fast growth in the US, is considered the fastest growing social network in Europe).
Orkut leads in India, Brazil and Pakistan
hi5.com is leading in Peru, Colombia, Central America, Mongolia, Romania, and Tunisia
Bebo is strongly adopted in Ireland and New Zealand
Skyrock leads in French speaking countries
Friendster leads all across Southeast Asia
Fotolog dominates social networks in Argentina and Chile.
Cyworld leads in South Korea. South Korea is known to be the most developed social network country, as 55% of South Korean have visited a social network in the last 30 days.
Mixi dominates Japan.
As for China: MySpace China tries to challenge local rivals such as 51.com, Mop.com, and Woku.com

The current map is about to change as:

1. Mobile social networks are getting stronger: According to m:metrics: MySpace leads mobile network in the US and UK, Facebook comes in second. MSN/Windows Live Spaces is preferred in France, Germany, Italy and Spain.

2. MySpace and Facebook are trying to a get a strong hold in Asian countries.

3. Google joins in: Google’s new social-networking platform to cooperate with most of the social networks sites (MySpace – in, Facebook – out)

4. Facebook, still showing a promising growth, can be expected to add more targets world wide.

5. I believe that in the near future social networks will lose country and language dependency and will be dominated by niches of shared interests.

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