Image via Complex Original
If you live here in the U.S., you would not be faulted for thinking the rest of the world also uses nothing but Facebook and Twitter. In fact, you would be mostly right. With over 1 billion users, Facebook is the dominate social network across the globe. However, there are some countries that prefer to use their own home-brewed social networks. Some, like China's Qzone, are big enough to make Zuckerberg sweat, while others, like Germany's StudiVZ, are simply happy to be in the game. Read on to find out what services people across the globe are using to stay connected.
Orkut
Country: Brazil
Google's social networking push in the States centers around Google+. However, in 2004 the search giant launched its first social network, a site developed by an Turkish employee named Orkut Buyukkoten. While the site didn't fare well in the U.S., the site took off in Brazil. So much so that more than half of Orkut's users are from the South American country. Instead of deeming the project a fail, Google decided to move the headquarters to Brazil in 2008.
Country: France
Dubbed the "Free people network," Skyrock ranks in as the world's 7th largest social network. Skyrock is akin to Myspace and Facebook, allowing users to create profile pages and post their music. It's so popular that, like Facebook, companies use to build brand pages to interact with fans and consumers. It's also the place where students go to talk shit about their teachers. Power to the people.
Country: United Kingdom
A few years ago, many people thought Bebo would go the way of Friendster. Once one of the hottest web properties, Bebo was sold to AOL for a staggering $850 million in an attempt to gain marketshare with young users in the UK. As the site soared past Myspace, AOL expected the site to go gangbusters. No dice. That said, the site is still one of the most popular social networks in the United Kingdom behind Facebook.
Country: Russia
The fourth most-visited site in Russia, VK, formerly called V Kontakte, boasts over 100 million users. It's no surprise that it's founder Pavel Durov stuck gold with the social network: He borrowed very heavily from Facebook's rise and design. Like Zuckerberg's creation, VK was at first only available to college students.
Country: Spain
Started by a group of four friends in 2006, Tuenti (pronounced like "twenty") has gone on to amass 12 million users, making it the most popular social network in Spain. We guess that's why people outside of Spain refer to it as the "Spanish Facebook".
Country: India
Before it was refocused as a social gaming site, hi5 blew up fast in India. Founded in San Francisco by an Indian tech entrepreneur by the name of Ramu Yalamanchi, hi5 started life a traditional social networking site. In 2009, when a new CEO took over the reigns, the company decided to shed its former image and reemerge as a gaming website. Two years later, the company was sold to Tagged, another social networking company, which is currently working to turn hi5 into a newer, better version of its original incarnation.
Country: China
Started by two University of Delaware grads and three Tsingua University graduates, Renren functions and looks very similarly to Facebook, hence its "Chinese Facebook" nickname. At the time of its U.S. IPO filing with the SEC in which it hoped to raise $584 million, the company revealed that it had 31 million users. Not very Facebook-like at all.
Country: China
Renren's main competitor, Kaixin001 gained fans when it launched knockoffs of popular Facebook games and apps like Happy Farm which, as you can guess, is a rip off of Farmville. Kaixin001 became so popular, Renren launched a clone service and purchased the kaixin.com domain. Renren's parent company, the Qianxiang Group, was found guilty and was forced to pay damages to Kaixin001.
Country: China
It's no secret that when Twitter caught fire, Facebook decided implement some features from the microblogging service. Chinese company Sina Weibo decided to take it one step further and combine the two with Weibo. The service, which name translates roughly to "microblogging," leans more heavily on Twitter features with the ability for users to post 140-character messages, repost messages, direct message users, and use hashtags. People seem to love it as more than 30% of all Chinese Internet users have signed up for the service.
Country: Germany
Many people lament the day Facebook opened its doors to non-students. Ehssan Dariani and Dennis Bemmann decided to build a social network that would remain open only to enrolled in school. Since its launch in 2005, StudiVZ has grown into the one of the most popular and visited social networks in Europe with 16 million users. A lot of features found in Facebook, like Poking, are also found in StudiVZ. Co-founder and CEO Dariani has not hidden then fact that Facebook was his inspiration and model, saying: "We may have oriented ourselves along the lines of the Facebook layout. But it was also clear from the get-go that we would strongly distinguish ourselves by other things, that we wanted to be original."
