7 must-see International Social Networking Sites [kwiqq]

Posted on | May 29, 2009 | View Comments

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With the advent of social networking sites becoming increasingly mainstream, it has thus become obvious that while everyone knows about the popular sites of Facebook, Twitter, and Myspace, there is a whole other social media world across the ocean.  While many foreign nations use these same sites as well, they have their own social media sites that are unique to their culture.  Across the globe, more and more sites are gaining prominence in specific regions, catering to their own public within their cultural sphere, promising an easy way to keep in contact with old friends and meet new ones.

Badoo

Badoo was established in London in 2006 and has maintained its place as one of the top ten websites in Europe.  It allows its users to meet and keep in contact with people in their local area (typically the UK).
Friends Reunited was created in 1999 around the time of the first online blogging sites in the U.S. and was the first online social network to receive any semblance of prominence in Britain through following the success of the United States’ site, classmates.com.  This site thus allows its users to maintain contact with old school friends and acquaintances, a step up from classmates.com.

Friendster

Friendster was created in 2002, months before Facebook and Myspace overtook the internet social network community.  While it was created in the U.S., it no longer remains a popular site in the country, with most of its users hailing from Asia.  To this day, it claims to be the number one network in user engagement.
Habbo was created as a different type of social network environment, as its users create avatars and participate in an online hotel, the “Habba hotel”.  Created in 2000, the founders wanted to create an international business that was based on a virtual hotel concept.  With the advent of other similar virtual worlds like Second Life and the Sims, Habbo stands as a revolution in its time that paved the way for UK virtual worlds.

Hi5

Hi5 was founded in 2003 in the United States as another type of social networking site, although it is most prevalent in Latin American countries, with its highest following pages being Hispanic.  Globally, it ranks as 25th in the world in terms of popularity, although this number is drastically different within the United States.

Hyves

Hyves is a free Dutch social networking site which has been in existence since 2004.  This site is mostly used by the younger generation, which has since compelled many prominent political forces in the Netherlands to create an account in order to reach out into this youth generation.

Livejournals

While LiveJournal remains a popular American site, stemming from its first roots in 1999, it was sold to a Russian media company in 2007, thus building up its Russian audience.  The Russian president, Dmitry Medvedev created his own page on the site within the past month in an effort to appeal more to his constituents since the site now has a vast Russian following.

Mixi

Mixi is a social networking site unique to Japan.  Created in 2004, it now holds 10 million users.  However, this is one of the few social networking sites that exists as “invitation only” making it exceedingly difficult to get an account if you do not live in Japan; the site additionally requires that you have a Japanese cell phone email address.

Muxlim

Muxlim exists as a Muslim portal site and stands as the Muslim equivalent of Yahoo, Facebook, and Youtube.  It is unique to the Muslim culture and was founded in 2006 by two Finnish entrepreneurs, existing to bring the Muslim world closer together via the Internet.
Odnoklassniki is a social networking site unique to Russia and the former Soviet Union which allows users to search for old classmates as well as make new friends via the service.

Conclusion

All these different sites are further proof of an ever expanding global order through the internet, as well as an attempt to keep various cultures unique.  While most of these sites welcome participation from all around the world, some sites like Mixi, require you to be a participant of this cultural phenomenon thereby preserving their own customs via social networks.

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