Social Networking websites are hot these days because they easily allow users to connect with friends, family and relatives irrespective of their place of stay. With the busy lives of people it is hard to meet up friends or family everyday. But the advent of social networking sites has really proved as big boon and offered users with the opportunity to stay in touch with each other.
In this list, we only included social networks which are offered in English language. There are certainly few other high traffic and popular social networks offers in other language/regional language.
Facebook is one of the most popular social networking sites, currently more than 1 billion people around the globe registered with it. It is platform, which offers users to keep up with friend’s and upload different videos, pictures or even share links. An estimated 750,000,000 different users visit the Facebook in a single month with over 908 million users around the world.
Twitter is a social networking as well as micro-blogging service where users can read and send text based messages of 140 characters. Jack Dorsey launched Twitter in the year 2006 and since then it has become one of the widely used sites on the internet. There are 340 million tweets that are generated on a daily basis with 1.6 billion search queries each day. The site has more than 5000 million registered users.
Google+
Google+ is a social networking website launched in the year 2011 and operated by Google Inc. There are around 250 million users in Google+ with an estimated 65,000,000 users visiting the site every month. Social services like Google profiles are integrated by Google+ and new services have been introduced like Sparks, Hangouts and Circles. The count for the registered members on the website has touched the 250 million mark.
LinkedIn was officially launched in the year 2003 and is one of the widely used professional networks on the internet with 160 million users. LinkedIn connects people to different contacts and helps them to share ideas, opportunities and knowledge with various networks of professionals. It is headquartered in Mountain View, California and is available in seventeen different languages.
Pinterest is a social networking site which comes with a difference where the users are allowed to organize and share things they find on web. Users can create create pinboards and pin or repin interesting things. The users at Pinterest use it as a place to plan their weddings, decorate their houses or some other creative purposes.
VK.com
VK.com also known as VKontakte is famous mostly in Russian speaking countries, although the network is also available in many languages. The site claim to have more than 100 million users and more than 2.5 billion page views per day. Although site’s 67% users are Russian.
Badoo
This is a dating website found in the year 2006 with its headquarters in Soho, London. The site is used in 180 countries and is popular in Latin America, France, Italy and Spain. It has a ‘Rise Up’ feature included in its site that allows users to make their profiles more prominent. With more than 154 million users it is regarded among the top sites in the league.
StumbleUpon
StumbleUpon is a unique social networking website where users could discover and rate web pages, photos, and videos. Primarily known as a discovery engine i.e. a search engine which recommends web content to its users this site today has more than 20 million users.
Yelp
This is regarded as a platform which comes with a place for social networking, providing/checking user reviews, and also acts as a local search engine. Dedicated to the users in United States and Canada the site was launched in the year 2004 and had more than 71 million monthly unique visitors at the start of 2012.
MySpace
MySpace is a social networking website that offers an interactive platform for user-submitted network of friends, groups, blogs, personal profiles, photos, music and videos internationally. Based in Beverly Hills, California, MySpace is owned by pop star Justin Timberlake and Specific Media LLC., with approximately 30 million users.
Tagged
Tagged was launched in the year 2004 and is based in San Francisco, California. This social networking site has around 100 million users and is one of the fastest growing private companies in the United States. Tagged allows its members to view other people’s profile, play games, share tags and do much more.
Twoo.com
Twoo is a social networking website and a sister website of another leading social networking website Netlog.com. It offers online dating, chat, and making new friends. The site is online since 2011 and now available in more than 30 languages. The site allow free networking without advertisements but also have premium account options called “Twoo Unlimited” for unlimited access of all features they have.
Ning
A powerful platform which provides the users and their organizations the opportunity to create custom social networks. Launched back in October 2005 the site comes integrated for creating customized community websites and integrating with the other popular search engines such as Facebook. Headquartered in Palo Alto, California the site today has more than 90,000 social websites running on its platform.
Started with the name of Open Business Club Xing is a social software platform which creates a network place for the working professionals. Today it operates in more than 200 countries and is available in 17 different languages. The count of the registered members on the website has touched the 11 million mark.
Meetup
Meetup is an online social networking portal that helps to organize offline group meetings in various places throughout the world. Users can create group of like minded groups and organize meetups personally with various tools available. Members can join or find groups with common interests like movies, health, books, politics, careers, hobbies or pets. Good news for people who’re feeling alone!
Four Square
This is a dedicated social networking website for location based social networking especially for the mobile devices such as smartphones with over 20 million users. The highlights of the features which the site offers are ”check in” option at venues, text messaging, etc. The developers make it interesting for the users by awarding reward points for each check in.
Multiply
This social networking service allows its users to share different kinds of media like videos, blog entries, and photos within their own closely connected network. The network of the user is made up of direct contacts as well as others in a first degree relationship. The site has more than 11 million registered users today.
Netlog
Previously known as Bingbox and Facebox this is a Belgian social networking website targeted mainly towards the youth in Europe. This site was launched in the year 2003 and has 94 million registered users. Netlog offers its users with the advantage of creating their own web page, publish their music, extend their social network, post blogs, join groups and share videos.
Hi5
This social networking site is based in San Francisco, California and was found by Ramu Yalamanchi in the year 2003. Hi5 has now refocused itself as a social gaming site providing great opportunities for new game developers. Like every other social networking site this features photo sharing, friend networks, status updates and user groups and has 80 million registered users.
Orkut
This social networking site is operated and owned by Google Inc. The purpose of Orkut is to help people meet their friends, maintain relations and make new friends. Although Orkut is not that much popular in the United States, it has earned huge popularity in the countries of Brazil and India. Presently this social networking website has over 100 million users worldwide.
Tuenti
Referred to as the ‘Spanish Facebook’ this social networking site is based in Spain. It is mainly targeted towards the young people and students of Spain and is only accessible by people who have been invited. Like other popular social networking site this site also features upload photos, link videos, connect with friends and profile. Presently this site has around 13 million users in the country of Spain.
MeetMe
Formerly known as MyYearbook, MeetMe social networking was launched in the year 2005. A virtual economy is included in the website where members can spend and earn ‘Lunch Money’ which is the virtual economy of MeetMe. Members can purchase gifts for other users or even send the money to their favorite charity.
Classmates
This social networking service was found by Randy Conrads in the year 1995. Earlier known as reunion.com This site was basically aimed towards assisting members to find their acquaintances from kindergarten, school, college, and U.S military. Although this site was extremely popular with 50 million users, the inclusion of small amount of fees for the services stopped it from reaching the heights.
CafeMom
CafeMom is the most vibrant and meeting place for mothers online. This social networking site was found by Andrew Shue and Michael Sanchez in the year 2006. With over 140 million page views every month it is definitely the most popular website for women. With over 1 million women registered it offers mothers to connect with each other, exchange advices, and get entertained.
Plurk
This is another social networking website which allows the users by using short messages or links. These messages are known as plurks and can extend up to 140 characters. All the latest plurks by the other users appear on the timeline of the registered users to which the users could respond using text messages or instant messaging.
Wayn
Launched in the year 2005 Wayn is a social travel network which has a goal of helping people in discovering the places to go, travel guides and what to do. It offers a platform to the like-minded people to share their thoughts and experiences especially on travel. Being among the fastest growing social networks it has more than 10 million users today.
Care2
Found way back in 1998 by Randy Paynter this is social networking site offers the platform to the activists to connect with each other. The site aims at making the world a better place by bringing individuals and organizations close to each other. With a huge number of registered members of approximately 9.9 million it has made numerous impacts around the globe.
MyLife
This social networking service is online since 2002. The website helps its members to stay in touch with their friends, lost loves and relatives. The site is mostly popular in the United States and Canada with 1 million new users every month. The site in a decade old journey today has more than 51 million users.
Couch Surfing
Based in San Francisco this site offers the services of hospitality exchange and social networking services. The users are provided the platform to share their pictures, personal experiences, and connect with old and new friends. The site today has more than 2.9 million registered users from the world over.
Ibibo
Ibibo is an Indian social networking site that offers its users with a variety of applications. It was launched in the year 2007 and was found by Ashish Kashyap. iFreshface tool offered by Ibibo allows aspiring models to promote their portfolios within the social network. It has about 3.5 million users today.
Experience Project
This is a free social networking website which connects people and enables them to share their life experiences. The site comes with interactive communities where the users can submit their personal stories, blogs, pictures, and confessions. With over 7 million real life experiences on the blog it is gaining popularity every day.
Academia
This popular social networking site has been built with a motive to provide a platform to its users for sharing research papers, monitor their impact and then follow it up in the research field. Launched in the year 2008 the site today has over 2.1 million users.
Sonico
Basically aimed towards the people of Latin America, Sonico is free access social networking site. This site is the second most popular social networking site in Brazil with more than four million users. As many as 50 million registered users search and add new friends, upload photos, manage their profiles, play several games, interact with other users through messages, put comments, etc.
Bebo
The social networking website Bebo allows its users to post photographs, videos, blogs, questionnaires, and music on their personal profile page. At its height of popularity Bebo surpassed MySpace with 10.7 million different users and at one was the most popular site in Ireland.
Gather
This social networking website is based on providing people the domain to share their perspectives on the developments happening around the globe. The users can share their views, join conversations, share their interests, and connect. Today the site has more than 4.6 million registered users sharing their opinions and experiences.
Get Glue
This particular social networking site has especially been built for the mobile device users. The site allows users to ”check in” to the entertainment that they use on the website, its mobile edition, or the device specific applications. The site in a short duration has touched the mark of 2 million registered users globally.
MyHeritage
MyHeritage is a social networking and genealogy website allowing members to create their family websites, share videos and pictures, create family trees, search for ancestors and organize family events. The site is available in 38 different languages and has more than 1 billion online profiles.
Yammer
Recently this site was taken over by the Microsoft group which provides a medium of private communication for the organizations. It can also be used by individual organization for communications within members and employees. Regarded as an excellent sample of enterprise social software this micro blogging service site has more than 4 million users today.
With so many social networking sites available nowadays, life has become a lot easier with means available to stay connected with our near and dear ones. If used in a proper way social networking sites can really help our society in numerous ways.
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