Social networking's very global growth

While social networking may've reached the saturation point in North America, at just 9% growth among people 15+ over the past year, worldwide it has grown 25%, according to June traffic figures from comScore. Social networking's growth was highest in Africa and the Middle East at 66% from June 2007 to June 2008; Europe was next at 35%, and Latin America a close third at 33% (Facebook grew 1,055% in Latin America, 6/07-6/08). ComScore put the global social-networking total at 580.5 million visitors, compared to the world's total number of Internet users, 860.5 million (11% growth over June '07). The numbers for individual social-network sites were interesting too: The world's top 7 sites, in terms of June 2008 unique visitors, are Facebook, MySpace, Hi5, Friendster, Orkut, Bebo, and Skyrock Network, respectively. Facebook grew 153% globally to 132.1 million visitors; MySpace grew just 3% (to 117.6 million), and 3rd-ranked Hi5 had the second-highest growth rate of 100% to 56.4 million visitors. The six largest social sites, including Google's Orkut, are all US-based, though Orkut is much more popular outside the US (it's huge in Brazil) and Friendster in Southeast Asia. No. 7, the music-and-blogging community Skyrock Network, is No. 1 in France and based in France (it had 21 million visitors in June). Here's the Machinist (Salon.com columnist) on one possible explanation for social sites' popularity: persuasive technology.

MyYearbook: US's fastest-growing social site

It seems to fly mostly under the radar where adults and conventional news media are concerned but, according to Web traffic measurer Hitwise, myYearbook.com is now the third-ranking social network site in the US. That's according to Hitwise's figures for share of visitors this past April. My guess is, the site's smart to stay focused on high school-aged users. Founded in 2005 by siblings Dave and Catherine Cook when they were high school students, myYearbook is also the fastest growing social site, PhillyBurbs.com cites HitWise figures as showing, with market share growth of "426% in the past year alone. Visitors to myYearbook.com spent more time on the site than they did on the two leading social networking sites, MySpace and Facebook. The average visit was 32 minutes and 54 seconds for myYearbook, compared to 29:54 for MySpace and almost 21 minutes for Facebook." Favorite features among its users, according to myYearbook, are "'Match,' which enables them to make new connections online; 'Battles,' where members battle for 'Best Looking' or 'Cutest Couple'; 'Pimp,' an all-out profile customization tool with all the glitters and animations anyone could ever want; and 'myMag,' where young people sound off on issues like anorexia, cliques, relationships, and the fashions and foibles of their favorite celebrities." The site added "Video Battles" and "myMag" last July.