/Facebook becomes the main social network in most countries, but in Asia and Latin America

Facebook becomes the main social network in most countries, but in Asia and Latin America

Facebook is rapidly becoming the main social network everywhere around the world, but in Asia and Latin America. Countries in which another site was more popular than Mark Zuckerberg’s are falling down to the charm of Facebook. The last one is chauvinist France.

In the country of love, a local network developed by a music radio station, Skyrock, was the main social network. It started up as a blog network but smartly became a social network, following the example of MySpace. In December, Facebook surpassed this site as the most used social network in France, according to ComScore.

This is happening in many other countries. In Spain, since October Tuenti is not the main social network any more. The same happened with Bebo in the UK at the beginning of 2008, and in Italy back in 2008. The same story occured in the US just one month ago, when Facebook surpassed MySpace. Germany, Belgium and the Netherlands still have local champions.

What’s happening? Social networks are becoming very popular and, as they grow, the age of their users becomes higher. This works against local networks, which are associated with very young people. Besides that, Facebook is very strong from a technical point of view. No other social network in the world is as open and reliable as Facebook, which is favoring it as the first tool for newbies.

It’s also interesting to see that, even if Facebook has taken Skyrock by storm, the same is not happening in the professional social networks. While Linkedin is the clear leader worldwide and Xing is also quite strong in Germany, Viadeo, a French network, keeps being the most popular network for professionals in its native country.

There are countries with local leaders:
– Germany has Studiverzeichnis
– Holland has Hyves.nl
– Perou (and other South American countries) and Mexico have Hi5 as its main network. Hi5 is also the leading social network in Romania and Portugal.
– Argentina has Sonico, though Facebook is more popular right now. Fotolog, though not a social network, is the leader in this country.
– India, Estonia and Brazil have Orkut as the main social network
– Lithuania has One.lt
– Ukraine and Russia have Vkontakte, while Georgia, Uzbekistan and Armenia have OdnoKlassniki
– Hungary has Iwiw
– China has Xiaonei and Kaixin01
– Japan has Mixi
– The Philippines has Friendster
Cyworld is the leader in South Korea
– Taiwan has Wretch