Although social networking sites have been around since the mid-1990s, it is only in recent years that there has been a huge explosion of them across the web.
This article presents the list of the 30 social networks which currently have more than 25 million users. Between the list of the largest social networkscan be verified networks of various typesfrom general-purpose social networks to social networks with specific themessuch as education, photos, family or dating.
Social networks focused on certain niche interests increasingly engage people around the topics in question, and there are already hundreds of social networks with millions of members. Amplitude Net is currently making a big push into this area of thematic social networking through its ud121 social platform.
LIST OF 30 MAJOR SOCIAL NETWORKS
| # | Name | Registered Users | Type of Social Network |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | 1 500 M | Generic: Photos, Videos, Blogs, Apps. | |
| 2 | Qzone | 611 M | Generic (in Chinese only) |
| 3 | 517 M | Generic: Micro-blogging, RSS, updates | |
| 4 | Sina Weibo | 503 M | Generic: microblogging exclusively Chinese. |
| 5 | Google+ | 500 M | Generic: Photos, Videos, Blogs, Apps. |
| 6 | Tagged | 330 M | Generic |
| 7 | 238 M | Professional Contacts | |
| 8 | Vkontakte | 190 M | Generic: Photos, Videos, Blogs, Apps. (Very popular in Russia) |
| 9 | Renren | 178 M | Generic: Photos, Videos, Blogs, Apps. (Exclusively Chinese) |
| 10 | Badoo | 172 M | Datting Network |
| 11 | 130 M | Mobile Photo Sharing | |
| 12 | Habbo | 100 M | Generic: aimed at teenagers. |
| 13 | Douban | 100 M | Movies, Music and Books (Exclusively Chinese). |
| 14 | Flickr | 87 M | Photo Sharing |
| 15 | Netlog | 84 M | Generic: Photos, Videos, Blogs (Popular in Europe, Turkey) |
| 16 | MyHeritage | 75 M | Genealogy and Family |
| 17 | Pintrest | 70 M | Image Sharing / Photography |
| 18 | Odnoklassniki | 65 M | School Fellow Connections (Popular in Russia) |
| 19 | MyLife | 60 M | Generic: Personal Relationships |
| 20 | Classmates.com | 55 M | School Colleague Connections |
| 21 | Sonico | 55 M | Generic: (Popular in Latin America) |
| 22 | Viadeo | 50 M | Professional Contacts |
| 23 | Slideshare | 50 M | Sharing Presentations: PowerPoint, PDF, Keynote |
| 24 | Last.fm | 48 M | Music |
| 25 | Viddy | 39 M | Mobile Video Sharing |
| 26 | Orkut | 33 M | Generic: Photos, Videos, Blogs (Popular in Brazil) |
| 27 | Foursquare | 33 M | Personal Location Sharing, GPS |
| 28 | I drink | 30 M | Generic: Photos, Videos, Blogs |
| 29 | EDMODO | 29 M | Education: Teachers, Students and Parents |
| 30 | DeviantArt | 26 M | Photo and Illustration Sharing |
References:
(1) http://investor.fb.com/releasedetail.cfm?ReleaseID=780093
(2) http://www.techinasia.com/tencent-q1-2013-report-wechat-has-195-million-active-users/
(3) http://semiocast.com/publications/2012_07_30_Twitter_reaches_half_a_billion_accounts_140m_in_the_US
(4) http://www.engadget.com/2013/02/21/sina-weibo-500-million/
(5) http://googleblog.blogspot.co.uk/2012/12/google-communities-and-photos.html
(6) http://therealtimereport.com/2012/02/10/social-networking-stats-tagged-tops-330-million-registered-users-rltm-scoreboard/
(7) http://venturebeat.com/2013/08/01/linkedin-reports-strong-q2-results-membership-grows-to-238m-users/
(8) http://newsroom.cisco.com/press-release-content?articleId=1156911
(9) http://www.forbes.com/sites/greatspeculations/2013/05/03/renren-rides-chinas-social-networking-and-gaming-to-3-20/
(10) http://thenextweb.com/apps/2013/02/08/social-dating-service-badoo-launches-an-ipad-app-for-its-172-million-users/
(11) http://mashable.com/2013/06/20/instagram-130-million-users/
(12) http://www.sulake.com/press/releases/habbo-reaches-100-million-registered-avatars-worldwide/
(13) http://www.forbes.com/sites/ciocentral/2012/10/25/5-things-you-need-to-know-about-chinese-social-media/
(14) http://www.theverge.com/2013/3/20/4121574/flickr-chief-markus-spiering-talks-photos-and-marissa-mayer
(15) http://netlog.appappeal.com/
(16) http://blog.myheritage.com/media-kit/
(17) http://thenextweb.com/socialmedia/2013/07/10/semiocast-pinterest-now-has-70-million-users-and-is-steadily-gaining-momentum-outside-the-us/
(18) http://rusbase.com/news/author/benhopkins/vkcom-9-world-odnoklassniki-closing-gap/
(19) http://www.businessinsider.com/mylife-app-launch-2012-1
(20) http://techcrunch.com/2012/06/11/classmates-com-parent-united-online-acquires-school-focused-friend-finder-schoolfeed/
(21) http://thenextweb.com/la/2012/11/07/latin-american-freelance-marketplace-workana-bags-500k-in-round-led-by-evenbase/
(22) http://thenextweb.com/insider/2013/01/14/pealk-viadeo/
(23) http://blog.slideshare.net/2013/05/09/10-million-presentations-uploaded-to-slideshare/
(24) http://www.skilledtests.com/wiki/Last.fm_statistics#user_accounts_at_last.fm
(25) http://www.fastcompany.com/3001477/viddys-4-part-prescription-becoming-next-big-thing
(26) http://pt.wikipedia.org/wiki/Orkut_%28site%29
(27) http://blog.foursquare.com/2013/04/11/continuing-foursquares-growth/
(28) http://blog.contentfrog.com/so-many-social-media-platforms-so-little-time/
(29) https://www.edmodo.com/about
(30) http://www.wired.com/design/2013/03/deviantart-dreamup