Latin America favours Orkut, Hi5 and Metroflog while people from Asia-Pacific prefer Friendster, Cyworld and Orkut. The Middle East and Africa on the other hand seem to favour Facebook, Hi5 and Netlog.

We can also see differences by country. Canadians, for example, prefer Facebook to MySpace while Americans are still favouring MySpace over Facebook. Orkut is very popular in Brazil, LiveJournal is the favourite among Russians and the French prefer their very own Skyrock (formerly Sky Blog). The same goes for South Koreans who favour Korean-made Cyworld.

Here is the breakdown by continent:

North America

1. 1. MySpace
2. 2. Facebook
3. 3. Bebo

Europe

1. 1. Bebo
2. 2. MySpace
3. 3. SkyBlog / Skyrock

Latin America

1. 1. Orkut
2. 2. Hi5
3. 3. Metroflog

Asia-Pacific

1. 1. Friendster
2. 2. Cyworld
3. 3. Orkut

Middle East and Africa

1. 1. Facebook
2. 2. Hi5
3. 3. Netlog

For more information, check out the actual graphic at LeMonde.fr (see the link below)

Réseaux sociaux : des audiences différentes selon les continents
LEMONDE.FR | 14.01.08

©

• that Facebook and MySpace image uploaders are currently vulnerable to attack? More information >>
• that Flock 1.1, the social Web browser, will be released in a few weeks? Read a review here.
• that Paramount will sell virtual goods based on some of its films on Habbo?
• that according to one study, social networking websites are safer than instant messaging or chat rooms? But not everyone agrees. More info >>

Top 10 regardless of focus

1. 1. YouTube : video sharing
2. 2. MySpace: general
3. 3. Facebook: general
4. 4. Hi5: general
5. 5. Orkut: general
6. 6. Fotolog: photo sharing
7. 7. Friendster: general
8. 8. Sky Rock: general
9. 9. flickr: photo sharing
10. 10. Megavideo: video sharing

General

• Badoo: popular in Europe, 18 and older
• Bahu: popular in Europe (France, Belgium, Poland…), 13 and older
• Bebo: Popular in UK, Ireland, New Zealand and the Pacific Island, 13 and older
• Capazoo: launched in Montreal, Quebec.
• Cloob: popular in Iran
• Cyworld: very popular in South Korea and now has sites in United States, China, Japan, Taiwan, Vietnam
• Facebook.com : 13 and older
• FaceParty.com: 16 and older
• Friendster
• Gather:
• Hi5: most popular in Central America and in Asia
• Jaiku: purchased by Google in October 2007, micro-blogging
• MOLI
• MyOpera
• MySpace: 14 and older
• Netlog
• Orkut: Owned by Google. Popular in Brazil and India.
• Passado: Austria, France, Germany, Italy, Mexico, Russia, Spain, United Kingdom
• Pownce: micro-blogging
• Tagged
• tribe.net
• Twitter: micro-blogging
• Yahoo 360: 18 and older.

Blogging, Biographies & Life Experiences

• Dandelife
• LiveJournal
• Vox.com
• WebBiographies
• Windows Live Spaces
• Xanga

Books

• aNobi
• LibraryThing
• Shelfari

Clubbing

• DontStayIn

Consumer Ratings

• RateItAll

Ethnic Communities

• AsianAve
• Black Planet
• MiGente.com

Family/Family Trees

• Geni.com
• myHeritage

Games

• Doof
• Gaia Online
• GuildCafe

Investing

• BullSpot
• Cake Financial

Jet Set / Rich & Famous

• aSmallWorld: private, you must be invited by a member.
• DiamondLounge: private, you must be invited by a member.

Live Video

• Stickam

Local

• Consumating: meet people in your area
• Meetup

Movies

• Flixster

Music

• Mog
• Soundpedia
• Buzznet.com: pop culture, music, movies, etc.

Open Source Software Developers

• Advogato

Pets

• Netmypet.com
• Pet-Files.com
• PetSmooch.com

Photo

• flickr
• Fotolog
• Phanfare: photo & video sharing with family & friends
• Zooomr

Physicians

• Sermo: US only

Religion

• MyChurch: for Christians
• TheFaithSpot.com: for Christians

Social Action

• Care2: green living, health, human rights and more.

Sports

• Joga Bonito: football (soccer) - owned by Google & Nike

Teens / High School

• Habbo
• myYearbook
• ProfileHeaven: mostly British teens
• Scone : US High Schools

Travellers & Hospitality

• CouchSurfing.com
• Hospitality Club
• TravBuddy.com
• Travellerspoint
• WAYN

Video Sharing

• Broadcaster.com
• YouTube

Nine months later, MySpace is ready to do the same. This may come as a surprise since MySpace used to be more than reluctant to open up to third party widgets, going as far as blocking links to video-sharing site YouTube and opting to create its own rival service, MySpace TV.

In July, Marshal Kirkpatrick of TechCrunch wrote:

MySpace has taken a step to increase security that disables a key method for third party vendors to spread their services inside the online social network. ¹

And in September 2006:

While competitor Facebook won accolades for opening an API to outside developers, it’s understood that there is probably zero chance of such openness from MySpace. ²

Things have changed since then, but is it really good news for MySpace and its users? While some feel the Facebook Platform helped make both Facebook and the companies developing the applications more popular, Kirkpatrick thinks the rise of Facebook came in spite of it. According to him, its the “newsfeed, clean site and well designed user experience” ³ that distinguishes Facebook from its rival. He adds: “by this time next year you’ll be getting spam from MySpace applications and be running to shut off your account altogether”. ⁴

I tend to agree with Kirkpatrick and I’m certainly hoping application fatigue will kick in soon on Facebook. But while there are quite a few Facebook groups petitioning against useless and spam-filled applications, compete.com’s Facebook Activity Breakdown seems to tell another story. In August 2007, 14 million unique visitors (of the 26+ million unique visitors for that month) interacted with applications that captured more time per session than any other activity on the site. ⁵ So the MySpace Platform may be good news for MySpace, the application developers and around half of MySpacers… for a while, at least.

We will have more info on how MySpacers welcome the applications when they start adding them to their profile pages. As for developers, they can sign up at http://developer.myspace.com and will be able to build applications using Google’s OpenSocial.

1. 1. Kirkpatrick, Marshall. MySpace security measure disables viral spread of widgets, TechCrunch, July 20 2006, Retrieved on February 3 2008.
2. 2. Kirkpatrick, Marshall. MySpace: We Don’t Need Web 2.0, TechCrunch, September 12 2006, Retrieved on February 3 2008.
3. 3. Kirkpatrick, Marshall. We’re Doomed: MySpace App Platform Coming Soon, ReadWriteWeb, October 9 2007, Retrieved on February 3 2008.
4. 4. Ibid.
5. 5. Freiert, Max. 14 million people interacted with Facebook Applications in August, Compete.com, September 14 2007, Retrieved on February 4 2008.

a next-generation social networking site where members can manage multiple profiles in one account. Members can separate their social, business and family relationships and keep control over their privacy. Targeted at both enterprising individuals above the age of 18 and small business owners, MOLI provides an easy to use, content-rich, multimedia interactive platform ideal for both community collaboration and e-commerce. MOLI sites are currently located in the U.S. (www.moli.com), the U.K. (www.uk.moli.com) and Ireland (www.ie.moli.com). ¹

Signing Up
So I visited their website and took their video tour. I was pretty excited to sign-up. But being from Canada, I couldn’t sign-up for a business/organization account using the moli.com website. On the moli.com website, which I found out is the US version of the site, you have to put in a zip code not a postal code to sign up. I later tried to create a business account on the UK website (www.uk.moli.com) and it worked even though they identified my postal code as being from Canada. Anyway, that being said, my exploration of MOLI took place using an individual account at moli.com.

What It’s Not
The people at MOLI are proud to announce that, unlike “other sites”, they give you the option to keep your social, business and family relationships separate from one another with only one account. So for some reason, when I signed-up, I had the impression that all of my profiles would be completely separate. I thought, for example, that the people who had access to my social profile wouldn’t even know I had a business profile or a cheesy band profile (no, I’m not really in a band) unless I told them, and vice versa. Of course, the people at MOLI will probably tell me I can hide my profiles. But a hidden profile means only the people you invite to your community will know it exists. One may not necessarily want them to be hidden. I may want my cheesy band to be public and become popular but I may not want my co-workers to know I’m in that cheesy band until we make it big (seriously, I don’t have a band). So in other words, I thought I could have all of my profiles (public or private) in one account but that they wouldn’t appear to be linked to one another to other users. So, for the record, this is not the case.

What It Is
What you have is one screen name which is the same for all of your profiles. So let’s say your screen name is Molly. Under Molly, people will see you have a business profile, a social profile, a family profile and what seems to be a cheesy band profile. What you can do is decide who can access which profile. And if you are part of a secret club, you can keep your profile for this secret club hidden and only invite other people from that community to see it. This, I think, will accommodate most people who seek a little less transparency and simply don’t want their boss or their mom to have access to their social profile. It is also an improvement compared to what Facebook and MySpace currently offer in terms of separating work from social life.

In her article Oh Moli You Heartbreaker, You, Sabrina Dent states that MOLI couldn’t check her Gmail to tell her who she knows is already a member. Actually you can do this, but it may not be as simple as on Facebook and I kept worrying all of my contacts would be getting the invite, even if MOLI tried to reassure me this was not going to happen. I went to the “Invite Friends” page and imported contacts from my Hotmail account using the link in Option 3. My contacts came up and those that were already on MOLI were highlighted in blue. It didn’t seem like I could send them a friend request from that page because when I added them to my contacts to send them an invite, they didn’t show up. But at that point (when I chose to add them to my contacts), they received a friend request from me. I know because “them” was none other than myself. So I got a friend request from myself. A bit strange, no? I could not, however, upload my contacts from Thunderbird which you can do on Facebook.

Music, Small Businesses… And Spam?
Dent’s other comments were accurate. There is an emphasis on art and music, there are useful tools for small businesses (web stores and CoVibe Live analytics - I was a bit surprised to find out 100% of my visitors were men with an average age of 61)… and there is some spam. Indeed, other than getting a friend request from myself, I also got a friend request à la MySpace from DrTom (who looks like he may be 61) about 30 minutes after I signed up, asking me to “check out DrTom’s Portal at www.drtom.tv for information and products on nature and the environment”. The next day, I got a friend request from none other than Anne Murray. Do all new members from Canada get this request from Anne Murray? And who knew Anne Murray was so up-to-date regarding social network websites? Interestingly, I haven’t received any such requests on my UK account yet.

Let’s get back to Dent’s review of MOLI for a moment. Below her review, someone left a very positive comment regarding MOLI:

MOLI is awesome. Exactly what grown ups and business have been waiting for. No kids spamming. The only thing i got when i signed up was a few friend request which is a good thing. ²

It seems those few requests are part of the deal. Dent later found out this person, who posted using the name Hawk5721, was MOLI’s Director of Customer Service. Don’t you think this type of behaviour is worse than “kids spamming”?

More Negative Reviews
Dent is not the only who thinks you shouldn’t bother with MOLI. Michael Richardson of Witigonen describes it as “a really poor implementation of an idea that’s pretty useless in the first place ³” and is turned off by its design.

Positive Review
Some, however, are more impressed with MOLI than Dent and Richardson. Gigaom’s Carleen Hawn loves the tools for businesses and the possibility of having multiple profiles. The downsides she points out are that MOLI may be too focused on marketing and that the site’s design may be a bit too much ⁴.

Conclusion
MOLI does look hip (to those who aren’t into spare designs), has the advantage of separating work and social profiles and offers interesting tools for businesses but, like many other social network websites, it has some learning to do on building trust. The people at MOLI may do well with small businesses looking for more exposure (MOLI stands for “money and living” after all) but they will have to come up with additional innovations to convince Facebookers and MySpacers who use their favourite website as a “social utility” to make the switch. Especially since there is talk that MySpace will soon offer multiple profiles and that Facebook’s Friend Lists Privacy Controls may lead to something similar. And if the people don’t come, the businesses they are courting with webstores and stats will also opt to stick with Facebook and MySpace. We’ll just have to wait and see.

Articles about MOLI…
Oh Moli You Heartbreaker, You by Sabrina Dent
Ex-E*TRADE CEO Goes Social With MOLI, by Carleen Hawn
MOLI wins $30m to keep your public and private life separate by Mike Butcher
Don’t Bother With Moli by Michael Richardson

REFERENCES

1. 1. Mainstream Holdings, Inc. Expands Its Social Networking Site MOLI.com With New Funding: $29.6 Million From Private Investors, PRNewswire, Jan 28 2008, Retrieved on Feb 1 2008.
2. 2. Dent, Sabrina. Moli.com Not Only Lies, But Whores, SabrinaDent.com, Jan 29 2008, Retrieved on Feb 1 2008.
3. 3. Richardson, Michael. Don’t Bother With Moli, Witigonen, Feb 1 2008, Retrived on Jan 2 2008.
4. 4. Hawn, Carleen. Ex-E*TRADE CEO Goes Social With MOLI, Gigaom, Jan 28 2008, Retrived on Jan 1 2008.

I will be honest. I do have a MySpace account but I never even attempted to find out if my friends were on MySpace. I opened an account to find out what MySpace was all about and if it could indeed help some of my clients get more exposure online. I currently use it to perform tests and research for this blog. As a web designer, I always felt MySpace was a usability professional’s nightmare. I understand that it offers the flexibility of customizing your profile but wouldn’t you agree that most people do a terrible job at it? That being said, MySpace is doing something right because it still has “twice the traffic and more users than its biggest competitor, Facebook” ¹ And that is definitely good news for small businesses, professionals or musicians seeking more visibility.

But Phillips seems to think that MySpace just doesn’t have the cachet that Facebook has. She reports that others seem to agree:

“Facebook is the company to watch, while MySpace is falling off the radar,” Silicon Valley analyst Rob Enderle told ABCNEWS.com. “MySpace is increasingly irrelevant. Unless they change that, they’ll go the way of Netscape or Friendster or any number of other Web properties.” ²

She then quotes blogger Simon Owens:

MySpace is inefficient and clogged with corporations, technical inefficiencies and spam. “MySpace is designed for the ’90s. It doesn’t listen to its users. It’s very inefficient and very glitchy and sacrifices usability for page views,” he said. “Facebook is very, very efficient.” ³

The 90s! Ouch! But Phillips reminds us Facebook is not squeaky clean either. Indeed, there is such a thing as an anti-Facebook movement and you also may have heard of the Facebook Beacon controversy, among others.

Through interviews with industry specialists, Phillips’s article also explores MySpace’s options to fight back as well as the impact that the initial target audiences, the creators and owners of both social network sites may have had on their current performance.

So who’s going to win the battle? According to experts, the winner will be whichever site (a new player, maybe) that takes “it to the next level when it comes to mobile applications and connectivity to other social networks”⁴ .

What do you think?

REFERENCES

1. 1. Phillips, Ashley. Is MySpace Over?, abcNEWS, Feb 1 2008, Retrieved on Feb 1 2008.
2. 2. Ibid.
3. 3. Ibid.
4. 4. Ibid.

… that, according to some, social network websites make breaking up even harder to do?
… that a social network for Christians was launched?
… that a social network for pet lovers was launched?
… that a DIY phishing service was discovered?

• … that, according to some, social network websites make breaking up even harder to do? In a humourous article, Jake Kilroy explains how social network website have made breaking up even harder to do to:

It’ll be hours after midnight, in the second hour of inspecting every detail of your ex’s profile page and you’ll say, “Who is this Kyle character? He’s left like … four comments in the last few days. Wait, why is he saying that he had fun last night? Hold on … let me just check out his page …

Read MySpace and Facebook have ruined good breakups for Jake’s take on the subject.

• … that a new social network website was launched for Christians? There is a new social network website for Christians. An article at Vindy.com explains that it is a community site meant to be similar to MySpace but without the sex and profanity. Everything is apparently also discussed from a more religious standpoint. Read the full article here or visit TheFaithSpot.com.

• …that a new social network website was launched for pet lovers? Launched on January 21 2008, “PetSmooch is a-la Facebook without the fluff, and a-la Myspace without the mess and is dedicated only to pets and pet owners. It is the new and most fun way of finding playmates and connecting with like-minded people. PetSmooch.com is the Stanford of pet sites!” says the Co-founder Tirza Van Noord. Visit PetSmooch >>

• … that there is such a thing as a DIY phishing service?

“Researchers at FaceTime Security Labs have discovered and reported a hacking Web site offering automatically generated text for use in creating phishing emails to steal login details for popular Web mail and social networking sites.” Read the full press release >>

1. The BBC is going beyond its core purposes and should stick to making programs;
2. The BBC is about to cut jobs and says it lacks funds so it should put its money elsewhere;
3. Social networking websites for children already exist (Club Penguin). ¹

But the articles may not be showing the whole picture and the critics may be jumping to conclusions a bit too quickly, at least regarding the BBC’s goals. When I read that MyCBBC will be designed to encourage users to talk about BBC shows, I was skeptical too. But according to an article at Silicon.com, MyCBBC will really not be your typical social network website:

Provisionally called MyCBBC the site is due to launch in the spring and will let kids store, display and share their favourite content from BBC shows, games and websites.²

The article also mentions users will be able to share this information with a maximum of 16 friends and that there will be no private, unmoderated interactions.

Spokespersons for BBC add that although the creation of MyCBBC will cost £200,000, the running costs will be minimal.

REFERENCES

1. Anger as BBC sets up a rival to Facebook… for six-year-olds, Thisislondon.co.uk, Jan 28 2008, Retrieved on January 29 2008.
2. 2. BBC gets savvy with web 2.0 kids, Silicon.com, Jan 29 2008, Retrieved on January 29 2008.

The bug had been around since at least October (Thanks to Rose for tipping me off), during which time it had been gleefully exploited by voyeurs, hackers, entrepreneurs and lechers; you can find pages and pages of public message board comments around the web in which posters are peeking in on 14 and 15-year-old girls and sharing what they find ².

Some of the posters in these message boards were self-described “pedos”, which he quotes in this article. It also quite troubling that some websites were created to make money off this bug.

REFERENCES

1. 1. Poulsen, Kevin. MySpace Bug Leaks ‘Private’ Teen Photos to Voyeurs, Wired.com, January 17 2007, Retrieved on January 28 2008.
2. 2. Poulsen, Kevin. MySpace Quietly Fixes Bug that Gave Voyeurs Access to Teens’ Private Photos, Wired.com, January 18 2007, Retrieved on January 28 2008.

In my opinion some of these tragic young people might be alive today if the internet didn’t exist. (…) We are naïve about these sites, we fail to spot how destructive they can be because we have never been threatened by them ourselves ¹.

Mr. Davies is certainly not the only one to feel this way. Bridgend MP Madeleine Moon has also expressed worry that social network websites could be romanticising suicide.

“I’m particularly concerned about this false romanticism of the memory wall that seems to have set up on Bebo giving some sort of romantic idea of suicide and not conveying the huge tragedy and wasted lives that we are looking at here,” she told BBC Radio Wales ².

In a debate linked to a BBC article, posters seem to think the Internet is blamed too quickly. One poster points out that the memorial sites can help some people deal with grief while another feels social network website can’t be held responsible “for how people choose to interact with each other” ³. Other ideas put forward include that the phenomenon of one suicide sparking another is not really new and that suicide has been romanticised in film, music and literature long before the Internet ever existed. Should we ban Romeo & Juliet?, asked one user. But the discussion is not completely one-sided. One poster shares her experience of seeking support through the Internet:

I used to go on support sites on the Internet and while they were useful in some respects I found that I got more bogged down in my problems thru using them. Some aspects got worse, like by reading about people that self-harmed I was more inclined to do it myself or it made that type of behaviour seem acceptable and normal ⁴.

To read the full discussion, follow this link.

REFERENCES

1. 1. Davies, Wayne. Fears grow over social networking websites, icwales.co.uk, Jan 27 2008, Retrieved on January 28 2008.
2. 2. Web worries after suicide spate, BBC News, Jan 23 2008, Retrieved on January 28 2008.
3. 3. Do social network websites romanticise suicide?, BBC News, January 23 2008, Retrieved January 28 2008.
4. 4. Ibid.