Social Networks » Social networks

Facebook surpasses Orkut in Brazil

Jose A. del Moral — Sun, 22 Jan 2012 04:05:03 +0000

This is big news. Orkut is not any more the largest social network in Brazil, as Facebook has for the first time become the top one. According to ComScore, in December 2011, Facebook attracted 36.1 million visitors versus 34.4 million for Orkut.

Facebook increased 192% since December 2010, while Orkut only grew 5% in the same period of time. This change leaves China, Japan, South Korea, Vietnam, Holland and Russia as the only markets in which Facebook is not the largest social network. India and Poland are already dominated by Facebook.

French local social networks lose ground to Facebook

Jose A. del Moral — Mon, 12 Dec 2011 17:42:17 +0000

In France local social networks, such as Copains d’Avant or Skyrock, are losing ground to the big three: Facebook, Youtube and Twitter. So says a recent study by Ifop based on interviews to 2,080 Internet users.

Facebook is the most reknown social network in France, where 95% of users seem to know it. Twitter is the one that has increased its notoriety the most, together with Badoo. Besides Copains d’Avant and Skyrock, Windows Live and MySpace have lost ground.

Google+ is in this list for the first time with a 64% notoriety rate. Not bad! Another interesting data is that Viadeo keeps being more reknown than Linkedin in France, even if Linkedin has gained 11 points since last year. In general terms, 77% of French Internet users do belong to at least one social network.

1. Facebook: 95%
2. Youtube: 92%
3. Twitter: 85% (+5)
4. Copains d’Avant: 82% (-2)
5. Dailymotion: 79%
6. Windows Live: 78% (-7)
7. Skyrock: 76% (-4)
8. Google+: 64%
9. MySpace: 63% (-9)
10. Trombi: 57%
11. Picasa: 56%
12. Badoo: 34% (+11)
13. Viadeo: 27%
14. Linkedin: 25% (+11)
15. Flickr: 23%
16. Netlog: 23%
17. Google Buzz: 20% (-10)
18. Habbo: 13%
19. Hi5: 11%
20. Ping: 11%
21. Planèt UMP: 9%
22. Wizbii: 4%
23. Louer un étudiant: 4%
24. Fotolog: 3%
25. FourSquare: 3%

Mobage overtakes Mixi as the main social network in Japan

Jose A. del Moral — Sat, 26 Nov 2011 11:52:11 +0000

Mixi might not be any more the main social network in Japan. Mobage, an only-mobile network based on gaming and launched just one year ago, has more users than Mixi. 75% of Japanese only access these sites from their smartphones. People in Japan don’t like Facebook as they are very privacy-conscious.

These are the top social networks in Japan right now, according to Asiajin:
1. Mobage (both Yahoo! Mobage for PC and Mobage Twon for mobile)
2. Gree (only mobile gaming, registration requires a Japanese cell phone number, makes money from virtual goods)
3. Mixi (very similar to Facebook, but uses nicknames instead of real names, makes money out of ads and registration requires a Japanese cell phone number)
4. Twitter
5. Facebook

How many social networks can survive?

Jose A. del Moral — Mon, 18 Jul 2011 23:11:54 +0000

If Google+ becomes mainstream, does that mean that Facebook will not stand up? How many social networks can survive at the same time. Not many. People don’t want to belong to several networks at the same time, as that is not easy to manage. We all go out in the same place, once we get accustomed to it. That explains why once Facebook becomes the main network, second networks start dying.

At least, that’s what I think. Nevertheless, Tom Anderson, founder of MySpace, does not think the same. This is what he says: “I don’t think social networking is a zero sum game. I suspect that people believe that social networking is a winner take all endeavor, because they mistakenly assume people left MySpace for Facebook. Facebook didn’t kill Myspace; MySpace committed suicide through continual mismanagement. (For what it’s worth, I include myself in that group of mismanagers and I don’t mean to blame any single individual—the troubles were tremendous”.

He also expalins, Friendster’s death in the same terms: “Likewise, MySpace did not kill Friendster—Friendster had its own set of problems. If they’d been corrected, I believe both MySpace and Facebook would have thrived as different types of social networks. (In fact, Friendster basically would have been Facebook—a real name network, focused on real-world relationships for efficient communication.)”

Map of world social networks (2011 version)

Jose A. del Moral — Tue, 05 Jul 2011 15:44:55 +0000

We have updated the original version of our map of social networks, which was first made two years ago. Things have changed quite a lot since 2009: many networks have disappeared, Facebook and Twitter have become stronger, new categories have surged (as social commerce or Facebook games), new functionalities have to be considered (mainly, localisation) and Facebook pages have become very important as social networks by themselves. At the same time, Facebook has conquered most of the world.

Is Badoo the largest European social network?

Jose A. del Moral — Thu, 23 Jun 2011 23:54:49 +0000

At the end of last year Brussels held a workshop on EU social networks and EU R&I programmes in which 15 social networks were present. Among them were some local leaders (as Holland’s Hyves, Spain’s Tuenti, Hungary’s iWiw, Greece’s Zoo, Sweden’s LunarStorm, Germany’s Vznet or Poland’s Nasza Klasa), some sites which technically can not be considered social networks (Portugal’s Sapo or Spain’s Barrabes), some content sharing sites (as France’s Dailymotion) and a few global social networks (Netlog and Badoo, which are based in Belgium and the UK). Germany’s Xing, which is a competitor to Linkedin with a strong position in Germany and China, also attended this meeting.

These last ones are the most interesting and they are the only ones that can be really considered as Europe-wide networks and the largest one is Badoo. So is this the largest European social network? The answer is yes. A dating site which makes money out of spamming and selling fees to its users is nowadays the largest social network in Europe. Industrial fragmentation is not good for Europe. Different regulations and strong cultural differences are dividing Europeans (and their social networks).

Curiously, the European Commission did set up this meeting because it considers that social networks offer big business opportunities to all the sectors of the economy. “Social networks are likely to become the main entry point to the web in the future, prevailing over the existing search engines. The continuous increase of registered users, together with the opening of social networks to business and entertainment spheres, unlocks new opportunities to increase the competitiveness of the web-based European industry”, explains the Commission.

As a result of this meeting, more bureaucracy was created. It’s called “steering group EU competitiveness on the web”. The members of the core layer of the Steering Group are representatives of social networks, online mobile gaming, web-based media, web end-to-end integrators, network service providers, public services providers, manufacturing industries, EU public administrations, and services industries. Interested organisations will also be represented through a second layer.

Top 10 countries in terms of Facebook penetration

Jose A. del Moral — Sat, 28 May 2011 21:30:11 +0000

The people at the Social Times have gone thru data from Facebook and ComScore in order to find out which countries have the highest Facebook penetration. This is: what a percentage of the online population is on Facebook. And these are the results:

1. Philippines: 94%
2. Israel: 91%
3. Turkey: 91%
4. Chile: 90%
5. Argentina: 89%
6. Malaysia: 88%
7. Indonesia: 87%
8. Peru: 87%
9. Colombia: 87%
10. Venezuela: 86%

Facebook becomes 3rd largest video sharing site in Spain

Jose A. del Moral — Tue, 17 May 2011 11:24:42 +0000

Facebook has become the third largest video sharing site in Spain, right after Google (Youtube) and Vevo. According to data from ComScore, in March every Spanish Internet user watched an average of 36 minutes of videos online every day, 17% more than one year ago. Taken to TV advertising measurement equivalents, this means 7,881 GRPs.

Top video sharing sites (march 2011):
1. Google sites (Youtube): 16.9 million people
2. Vevo: 4.4
3. Facebook: 4
4. Microsoft sites (Bing): 3.9
5. Dailymotion: 3.4
6. Viacom: 3
7. RCS (El Mundo, Recoletos): 2.9
8. Ustream.tv: 2.5
9. RTVE: 2.4
10. Mediaset (Telecinco): 2.3

Data from Vevo is quite strange, as currently it’s not possible to watch Vevo in Spain. Vevo is a music video site owned by Sony, Universal and Abu Dhabi Media. As Icaro Moyano tells me, this can only be explained by people watching Vevo videos inside Youtube.

Tuenti places Telefónica as top web property in Spain in terms of engagement

Jose A. del Moral — Sat, 07 May 2011 15:12:40 +0000

After buying social network Tuenti, Telefónica has become the 4th web property in Spain and the first one in terms of the minutes spent per visitor every month (what experts call “engagement with users”). Telefónica’s sites (mainly Terra and Tuenti) had 15.7 million unique visitors in March and each visitor spent an average of 321.2 minutes, more than Microsoft (288.5) or Facebook (181.6).

Despite Tuenti’s high engagement, Facebook still ranked as the top social network in Spain in March, with 15.7 million unique visitors and a 66.8 percent reach of the market. Overall, Social Networking as a category saw significant gains in penetration over the past year, from 78.7 percent to 95.7 percent of all Spanish Internet users.

Top properties in Spain:
1. Microsoft sites (including Messenger): 23.5 million unique visitors
2. Google (including Youtube): 22.2
3. Facebook: 15.7
4. Telefónica: 14
5. Yahoo: 13.6
6. Schibsted (including Infojobs and 20 Minutos): 10.4
7. Wikipedia: 9.8
8. Vocento: 8.9
9. RCS (including El Mundo and Marca): 8.5
10. Prisa (including El País): 8.5

The Netherlands has the highest penetration for Linkedin and Twitter

Jose A. del Moral — Thu, 28 Apr 2011 19:50:13 +0000

Which country has the highest penetration for Linkedin and Twitter? According to ComScore, it’s not the US, nor Brazil (leader in terms of social networking usage), but the Netherlands. How come? Probably, a higher professional usage of social networks has a lot to do.

Facebook (and local leader Hyves) are very general social networks, as compared to Twitter and Facebook. Besides, there are a lot of user os social networking sites in the Netherlands: 11.5 million in Mach 2001, which represents 96% of the online population (11.9 million).

The big rivalry between Germans, where Xing is the leading professional network, and Dutch might also explain Linkedin’s prominence in The Netherlands. In any case, the top ten countries in Linkedin penetration are either English-speaking or in Western Europe.