Social Networks Around the World

When a good friend of mine recently came back from visiting Eastern Europe, she commented that everyone she met didn’t ask for her email address or phone number; instead, they kept asking to be added to as a friend on Facebook. I was surprised to hear anecdotally that people over there were that into Facebook. I figured they had their own Eastern European version.

So it got me thinking: what social networking sites are people using the most in different parts of the world? An answer soon appeared in my inbox, as if the universe was in a good mood and just figured it would throw some answers my way.

From one of the information architecture discussion groups I subscribe to, I received a link to a presentation Peter Van Dijck gave this past Saturday at Europe’s Fourth Information Architecture Summit. In his presentation, entitled “Social Networks Going Global“, he breaks down the number of people on various social networking sites around the world.

Peter shows diagrams of how social networks are migrating around the globe and provides tips on how to set up tags and categories when building an international networking site. His slides also show screen grabs of the heavy hitters, like Asia’s Cyworld.

As the internet goes more and more global, it’s good for all of us to be aware of what others are using to connect. Check out the full presentation.

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