Click it for bigness.The map is designed to illustrate the leading social networking websites Europe.
Each country is coloured according to the dominant website.
My research method was simple and not very scientific. I used web traffic data from Alexa supported by all the anecdotal evidence I was able to collect from the Internet and e-mails to my contacts across Europe. Thankfully traffic data usually agreed with the reports I was sent.
Many many more sites exist in every nation. The major ones, MySpace, Facebook, Bebo and Hi5, have a large presence in almost every nation, but in most cases there is a clear leader.
Where there was doubt over the definition of Social Networking site I used Wikipedia as a guide and my own observations of site structure and function.
I'd like to thank everyone who sent me pointers and contacts when I was researching this. I'll be typing up a full discussion of my findings soon, with more data, observations and quotes from local users.
At this moment in time I believe the map to be largely accurate. In six months time it probably won't be. Facebook continues to grow across Europe and may soon overtake local language networks in many nations. Also look for the growth of Orkut, Google's networking site that dominates South America and India.
Full analysis and comment to follow. In the mean time, here's a full breakdown by country:
* Albania - Hi5
* Austria - StudiVZ
* Belarus - VKontakte
* Belgium - Skyrock
* Bosnia and Herzegovina - Hi5
* Bulgaria - MySpace
* Croatia - Facebook
* Czech Republic - Lide
* Denmark - Facebook
* Estonia - Rate
* Finland - Facebook
* France - Skyrock
* Germany - StudiVZ
* Greece - Hi5
* Hungary - Iwiw
* Ireland - Bebo
* Italy - MySpace
* Latvia - Draugiem
* Lithuania - One
* Luxembourg - Skyrock
* Malta - Hi5
* Moldova - VKontakte
* Netherlands - Hyves
* Norway - Facebook
* Poland - Nasza-Klasa
* Portugal - Hi5
* Romania - Hi5
* Russia - VKontakte
* Serbia and Montenegro - MySpace
* Slovakia - Azet
* Slovenia - MySpace
* Spain - Tuenti
* Sweden - Facebook
* Switzerland - Skyrock
* Turkey - Facebook
* Ukraine - VKontakte
* United Kingdom - Facebook
2 comments:
Good work, Hazell.
Very interesting indeed, though may I suggest that Bebo is as equally popular in Scotland (and possibly N. Ireland), as in Ireland?
Almost all students have Bebo in Scotland. Although 'tis also true that times are a-changing.
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