Social networks around the world: Who's on top?

On U.S. shores it's all about MySpace, but what about the rest of the world?

A new mini-study using Google Trends looked at 12 popular social networking websites and found that there's really no such thing as a "global" social network. Language barriers are the likely reason, and you'll see strong national lines when looking at a network's popularity from one country to the next.

For proof of this look no further than Google's famously botched Orkut network: It kept the walls closed to outsiders (unless you could score an invitation) for months (maybe years). By the time the doors were opened it had become overtaken by users from Brazil, to the point where many complained that if you didn't speak Portuguese, you had no hope of being able to make any headway on the system or convince any of your friends to join. (To this day I've still never bothered to register there.) Today Brazil remains far and away the country most interested in the service, with Paraguay a distant second.

Where are each of these social networks most popular? Here's the lineup:

• MySpace - USA (God help us)
• Facebook - Turkey (Facebook is probably the strongest world player on the list, with numerous countries showing strong interest; USA doesn't even rank in the top 10)
• Hi5 - Peru
• Friendster - Philippines (Yes, Friendster still exists, and it's huge in Southeast Asia)
• LinkedIn - India (Perhaps it's becoming a hot tool for connecting offshore businesses and their domestic counterparts)
• Orkut - Brazil
• Last.fm - Finland
• LiveJournal - Singapore (Russia is right behind, which appears to be turning the service into one monster spam site)
• Xanga - Hong Kong
• Bebo - Ireland
• Imeem - Philippines (Tracks closely with Friendster)
• Twitter - Japan (Makes sense considering the cell phone culture)

Interesting stuff. It really looks like we're seeing the rise of "national" social networks, where other networks simply don't matter as long as you're in country.

One caveat: Since search data was used, the survey doesn't actually look at use of the networks but at people searching for information about that network (or, by extension, accidentally typing the name of the site into the search box instead of the URL bar). So while these results may not track perfectly with the actual portion of country's residents who are using the service (Facebook seems awfully US-centric), it is instructive in showing where each network is popular, or at least becoming so.

LINK for more details and maps: Social network popularity around the world