Most Popular Social Networks

The Most Popular Social Networks Around the World

Ask any American to name the most popular social media platforms and Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest and maybe YouTube will top the charts. Some people don’t even consider YouTube social media, but that’s what it is. While these four powerful platforms might be popular stateside, but around the world there’s other social sites that are thriving.
It won’t be long before the U.S. is hit with a glutton of new social media platforms, too. There’s a trend towards going micro-local and experiencing intimacy with social media. Basically, platforms will cater to smaller groups and some will even encourage people to make plans online and then head out into the real world to enjoy them. Here are some of the most popular SM platforms around the world, and why Americans might want to join.

43 Things and Bebo

Never heard of 43 Things? It has three million (yes, million) users around the world and launched all the way back in 2005. However, the focus is far from sharing vacation photos and pictures of food on this site. It’s all about helping people achieve goals—it’s basically the do-gooder social media platform that has somehow remained a best kept secret in the U.S.
Some people have heard of Bebo, but they may not realize this SM platform has a few million users. It’s a general site, much like Facebook, but since Facebook has a billion users, Bebo naturally feels a little more intimate. Around since 2005, Bebo was popular during the days of MySpace and was the most popular social site in United Kingdom for awhile. Last week, Bebo announced it will be closed for maintenance.

QZone and VK

QZone is a popular Chinese social networking site. At the end of 2012 it was just under 600 million users with 150 million of those users active at least once a month. The unique part of QZone, however, is that members have to pay to unlock certain features. Created in 2005, QZone is part of their instant messaging service Tencent QQ. QZone is most known as a platform for blogging and self-expression but it does provide many features such as online social games, shopping and music.
VK, or Vkontakte, is the largest social network in Europe and very popular in Russia as well. The layout is shockingly similar to Facebook, the VK platform was created in 2006 and boosts over 100 million active users. VK is available in seventy languages, the same as Facebook, but the social site hasn't caught fire in the U.S. like they were hoping.