The Global Race Among Social Networks Heats Up. Keep an Eye on Hi5, Friendster, and Imeem

In the global race to be the top social network, MySpace and Facebook are neck and neck. In January, 2008, MySpace was still the biggest social network worldwide with 109 million unique visitors, according to comScore. But Facebook was close on its heels with 101 million. While MySpace and Facebook are fighting it out for the top spot, back in the second pack some interesting sprints and scuffles are going on that are worth keeping an eye on. Everyone in that second pack (Hi5, Freindster, Orkut, Bebo, Imeem) are about a third to a quarter the size of the leaders in terms of worldwide unique visitors, so I’ve isolated their performance in the chart above (it is harder to see if you include Nos. 1 and 2, MySpace and Facebook). In January, both Hi5 (No. 3, in red) and Friendster (No. 4, in blue), made moves to pull away from Google’s Orkut (No. 5, in green) and Bebo (No. 6, in yellow). The latter two maintained a more steady pace. Coming on strong from behind is Imeem (No. 7, in purple), which surpassed Multiply (No. 8, not shown). For Hi5 and Friendster, global growth is a major part of their game plan. Friendster, for instance, which dropped off the radar for most of us in the U.S., is now the single largest social network in Asia.
http://www.techcrunch.com/2008/02/27/the-global-race-among-social-networks-heats-up-keep-an-eye-on-hi5-friendster-and-imeem/