A Directory to Popular US Social Media Web sites (January 2010 Edition)
NOTE: This is going to have to be a work in progress, folks, because it’s a little too ambitious for a single day. I’ve got the entire list laid out and I’ve updated up through the P’s, but I’ll try to knock a few more out every day until it’s done. I seriously had no idea when I started how many popular social networks there really are!
Sure, you’ve heard of Facebook, Twitter, Myspace, Twitter, and other sites like them. But are you aware that there are hundreds of social media Web sites in existence right now that are being used by hundreds of thousands or even millions of people?
Here’s a directory to some of the most popular, presented in alphabetical order. If I’ve left some out that you feel are notable, please feel free to include them in the comments! (I’ve tried to be comprehensive, but there are SO many that it’s hard to include them all!
Note: I have included estimates of the number of users and Alexa rankings. Please keep in mind that both of these are not hard data, but rather, approximations. The number of users in particular were very hard to find for some of these sites and are based on the best information I could find. But they do not always take “active users” into account since I was not typically able to find data to suggest how many user accounts were actively in use.
Number of members: ~30 million
Alexa Ranking: 408
Type: Social Network
Description: The name means, “Blog early, blog often.” It’s presently owned by AOL and has struggled to stand out against other, similar social networks like Facebook and Myspace. Some users prefer it to the more popular alternatives because it’s less crowded, less intrusive, and easier to customize. There’s also a “Bebo Authors” and “Bebo Music” section for creative folks to call home.
Number of members: ~20 million
Alexa Ranking: 2,462
Type: Cohort Network
Description: Blackplanet is the largest social networking site geared at black Web users, though you don’t have to be black to join. The site covers a variety of interests, and also has a special section for black business owners.
Number of members: ~200,000
Alexa Ranking: 314
Type: Aggregator / Cohort Network
Description: Blogcatalog is one of the top social networks for bloggers, and if functions as a search engine of sorts for blogs as well. Though it doesn’t have as large a number of registered users, it’s a highly-trafficked site that allows users to integrate many social media sites into a single dashboard.
Number of members: ~Several million
Alexa Ranking: 3,801
Type: Cohort Network
Description: Cafemom is an online community geared at moms. Members set up customized Web pages and join groups and networks to share stories and tips with others moms.
Number of members: ~13 million
Alexa Ranking: 2331
Type: Cohort Network
Description: Care2 is a social network geared around causes that primarily deal with environmentalism, healthy living, community causes and social issues. One of the biggest features of Care2 is its online petitions, which are from causes for every conceivable category.
Number of members: ~50 million registered, 3 million paid
Alexa Ranking: 875
Type: Social Network
Description: Classmates is one of the oldest social networks on the Web; it started in 1995 and had already started into its decline while other social networks grew in popularity. It’s notorious for heavy banner advertising geared towards casual web users. Classmates is also known for some dubious business practices since it forces users to pay a fee to access “Gold” level features, which are pretty much everything the site has to offer.
Number of members: Unknown
Alexa Ranking: 3,198
Type: Aggregator
Description: Clipmarks is a Web site that allows you to take “clips” of the parts of Web pages that you find interesting instead of bookmarking the entire page. One advantage of this system is that it allows you to save clips of content that might change or become unavailable down the road. Users often try to make their clips short and informative (by editing out unneeded information), and comment on the quality of each others’ clips. The result is a quick and easy way to stay up on the news without actually having to read entire articles.
Number of members: 12 million +
Alexa Ranking: 928
Type: Alternate Reality Network
Description: Club Penguin is notable in that it’s a social network geared towards kids. It was acquired by Disney in 2007, and it functions more like a social game than a network. The game-like atmosphere was originally designed to help children be able to have safe interactions online without parents having to worry about whom they were speaking to. One drawback of Club Penguin is that it charges a fee for membership (starting around $6 per month).
Number of members: ~5 million
Alexa Ranking: 369
Type: Aggregator
Description: Delicious is a social network where users share bookmarks to Web pages, articles or other Web content that they find interesting. Delicious used to be its own entity, but was acquired by Yahoo! in 2005. One of the strengths of the site is its extremely easy-to-use interface; you just click on the keyword you’re interested in reading about and you’ll find a wealth of information.
Number of users: ~3 million
Alexa Ranking: 102
Type: Aggregator
Description: Digg is a social network where users share bookmarks to Web pages, articles or other Web content that they find interesting. What makes Digg different from the other aggregators is that users can choose to “Digg” or “Bury” stories based on their own personal interest in them. The most “dugg” stories are shown on the main page, resulting in a sort of “wisdom of crowds” approach that ensures that the most popular or relevant stories get noticed.
Number of users: ~350 million
Alexa Ranking: 2
Type: Social Network
Description: Facebook is the most popular social network in the entire world, and the standard by which all others are judged. Though Facebook began as a college-only site, it has become a social network for everyone. It offers most of the features you’ll find on other social networks, including status updates (similar to Twitter), photo albums (similar to Flickr), video hosting (similar to Youtube), groups (similar to Care2), notes (similar to blogs) and bookmark sharing (similar to the aggregators). What’s more, Facebook allows users to install tens of thousands of third-party applications that allow them to play games, post polls, draw pictures, take quizzes, participate in contests, or any manner of other activities. And, since Facebook is free, it represents an attractive proposition for users… and an emerging medium for Web-based advertisers who want to reach them. Unfortunately, Facebook is also plagued with constant controversies surrounding user privacy and user concerns over interface changes.
Number of users: ~500,000 overall, 2,000 paid accounts
Alexa Ranking: 2,444
Type: Aggregator
Description: Fark is a news aggregator that specializes in posting up unusual or humorous stories accompanied by snarky and amusing headlines. All of these links are submitted by users, but unlike other aggregators, Fark moderates its headlines and only “greenlights” those that the moderators feel are best on the main Web site. (Paid subscribers get access to every headline.) Many of the frequent users (both the free “Liters” and the paid “Total Farkers”) participate in discussions about each piece once it goes “green” on the site. These discussions tend to be rather irreverent, and often make references to popular Internet memes and trends. Fark users tend to be tech-savvy and appreciate
Number of users: Millions
Alexa Ranking: 33
Type: Social Media Network
Description: Flickr is a social network built around sharing photos. While it began as a place to simply host images, it quickly grew popular with photographers and became a place to share photos and receive critiques from others. Flickr also embraced the Creative Commons initiative and began offering photos that are authorized for use by individuals or organizations without an expectation of payment. Flickr was purchased by Yahoo! in 2005, and to date it offers both free and paid services.
Number of users: ~20 million
Alexa Ranking: 1,167
Type: Crowdsourcer
Description: Flixster is a social network that centers around discussing and reviewing films. Prior to its recent purchase of Rotten Tomatoes, Flixster’s content was almost entirely user-driven, resulting in over 2 billion user reviews of films. Flixster also allows users to find friends with similar interests and to obtain personal recommendations based on their own movie tastes.
Number of users: 100,000+
Alexa Ranking: 737
Type: Aggregator
Description: Friendfeed is a relatively new social network created by a few former employees of Google. It’s a little different from most social networks in that it attempts to pull information from several social networks (Facebook, Twitter, Youtube, Yelp, Flickr, and so forth) into a single feed. Then, this feed can be shared with other friends, creating a single network for sharing many disparate forms of social media. All in all, it could be a valuable way of having a “home page” for one’s social media postings.
Number of users: ~115 million
Alexa Ranking: 184
Type: Social Network
Description: Friendster was one of the first modern social networks, and it predates more popular networks like Facebook and Myspace. While it has never really taken off in the United States, it is very popular in Southeast Asia; 90% of its users come from that region of the world. In fact, it was acquired in 2009 by a Malaysian company called MOL, which suggests that Friendster will probably remain a dominant player in the Pacific Rim for the forseeable future. As a social network, Friendster doesn’t have much that makes it stand apart from others, but MOL is hoping to turn it into a micro-payment platform down the road.
Number of users: ~1 million
Alexa Ranking: 2,374
Type: Crowdsourcer
Description: Goodreads is a social network where members share book reviews and recommendations. While the site is primarily geared at avid readers, many authors are also getting involved in Goodreads, using it as a platform to stay in touch with their fans and to promote their upcoming books.
Number of users: ~60 million
Alexa Ranking: 52
Type: Social Network
Description: Hi5 claims to be the third most popular social network in the world, based on a 2008 comScore report. The reality is that it’s among the largest, but nowhere near Facebook, Myspace, Youtube, Twitter or other heavyweights in terms of usage or popularity, and Hi5 is much more popular in other countries (particularly those in Latin America) than it is in the US. Hi5′s primary focus is youth, and it focuses on offering a lot of flashy options not available on other networks, like built-in games, 3D avatars, dating services, and so forth. The catch, however, is that Hi5 wants users to invest in “coins” – in-network currency purchased for real-world money that allow users advanced access to Hi5′s games and services.
Number of users: ~1 million
Alexa Ranking: 1,457
Type: Crowdsourcer
Description: Instructables is a social network where users post “how-to” guides on anything they’re interested in demonstrating. The best guides earn favorites and comments from users and become featured articles on the main page. What’s fascinating about Instructables is the sheer depth of guides available; if you want to know how to do something yourself, Instructables is likely to have a guide for it.
Number of users: ~1 million
Alexa Ranking: 1,071
Type: Crowdsourcer
Description: Kaboodle is an interesting social network in that it offers something that’s fairly unique: a community centered around interests traditionally associated with women, like shopping, fashion and home decor. Since it was acquired by the Hearst company in 2007, Kaboodle has seen some explosive growth, going from a user base of tens of thousands to very close (if not already over) a million. Kaboodle allows users to collage ideas together into “kits,” share their thoughts through “blogazines,” offer style, fashion and decor tips through “styleboards,” and discuss stores (and, of course, sales!) of interest to the community. The genius of Kaboodle is that it allows retailers easy and natural access to deliver marketing messages to an enthusiastic audience — after all, if GAP is having a sale, these users want to know about it!
Number of users: Unknown
Alexa Ranking: 3,029
Type: Crowdsourcer
Description: While KillerStartups might appear to be a blog from first glance, it’s actually a community for entrepreneurs and small business owners to review and critique new internet startups. What’s really neat about the site is that among the 15+ startups reviewed every day (all submitted by users), users vote one to be a potential “killer” — the next site that will revolutionize the Internet. Thus KillerStartups is something of a social network about the cutting edge of technology.
Number of users: ~30 million
Alexa Ranking: 315
Type: Social Media Network
Description: Though Last.fm appears to be just another internet radio service at first glance, the site has incorporated a number of social networking features that make it interesting. As users input their musical preferences, Last.fm will generate special playlists for them that can also be shared by friends or “musical neighbors.” Users can also discuss music and bands and use the site’s social media tools to discover new music they didn’t know existed based on their taste preferences.
Number of users: ~45 million
Alexa Ranking: 38
Type: Cohort Network
Description: LinkedIn is fast becoming the social network for business contacts. One of the interesting things about LinkedIn is that it operates under the assumption that most people in the business world are connected in some way — through first-level contacts (people you actually know), second-level contacts (friends of friends) and third-level contacts (friends of friends of friends). As such, LinkedIn can be a very valuable resource for business networking, and its privacy controls make it easy to share information with primary contacts without disclosing too much to the public. If there is a downside to LinkedIn, it’s that predatory businesses such as multi-level marketing schemes are often trying to use LinkedIn as a recruitment pool. Thankfully, they don’t seem to last too long.
Number of users: ~2 million
Alexa Ranking: 81
Type: Blog / Crowdsourcer
Description: Livejournal is a community where users are able to maintain their own blog-style journals and share content with their friends. The site offers both free and paid accounts, and it has a devoted userbase and a very social atmosphere. Though the primary reason to use Livejournal is to maintain a, well, journal, users have set up journals for topical discussion, posting humorous anecdotes and other user-driven content.
Number of users: ~6 million
Alexa Ranking: 693
Type: Social Network
Description: The premise of Meetup is simple — it’s a social network for organizing real-life groups. Users go to the site, enter their ZIP code, and find all sorts of groups that are available in their area, categorized by topic of interest. What makes Meetup a little bit different is that organizers (the people who actually run the groups) pay a monthly fee while users (people who are looking to participate in groups) pay nothing. Additionally, Meetup is unique in that it is established to foster real-world contact using the Internet as a starting point.
Number of users: 40 million+ viewers, but most are not registered members.
Alexa Ranking: 161
Type: Social Media Network
Description: Metacafe is Youtube’s biggest competitor, and with good reason — it’s a really well-designed video site that is superior to Youtube in many ways. One of the big features of Metacafe is its VideoRank system, which ensures that the most popular videos (by registered user ranking) get the most recommendations on the front page for each of the many categories Metacafe offers. To ensure that videos are of a high enough quality, Metacafe has a panel of 80,000 volunteers reviewing all of the videos submitted to the site. Metacafe was also the site behind the failed experiment to pay incentives for user-generated content. Unfortunately, that program ended in 2008.
Number of users: 10 million
Alexa Ranking: 4,746
Type: Alternate Reality Network
Description: Moshi Monsters is a free-to-play kids’ game that behaves in a fairly social fashion. Gamers create a virtual monster and use it in a variety of educational games. Winning yields virtual currency called “rocks,” which can then be used to upgrade the player’s in-game house. What’s interesting about Moshi Monsters is that players can have their monsters make friends with other players’ monsters so that their virtual pets will have something to do while the player is away. The virtual world of Moshi Monsters even has a virtual newspaper where a player is highlighted as the “Monstar of the week.” All of the in-game messages and interactions are monitored to keep children safe.
Number of users: ~20 million
Alexa Ranking: 1,594
Type: Aggregator / Social Network
Description: My Life is one of those social networks that seems to be preying upon casual Web users by offering information, but then charging a fee for services. The premise is that My Life is a social network search engine that can help you find others, but if you want to contact them, you have to pay My Life a fee to do it for you. (One of the Web sites it owns is Reunion.com, a social network that was known for similar predatory fees.) Everything about this site is dubious, from its claim of 20+ million users to its claim that it archives 750 million profiles. It’s likely most of its traffic comes not from users, but its aggressive search engine placement.
Number of users: ~150 million
Alexa Ranking: 12
Type: Social Network
Description: Myspace is notable for being the first major social network, though it seems to have fallen out of favor over the last two years as users have flocked to Facebook and Twitter. Myspace originally began as a competitor to Friendster, but quickly grew in popularity in the US, particularly among the music community. Unfortunately, the Myspace platform (which allows users to customize their pages and to embed applications) has never quite caught up to the competition, and many accounts on the site are inactive. Myspace also has had considerable problems fighting spammers and scambots, which makes it a less desirable platform for many users. Probably the best feature of the site is Myspace Music, a still-thriving community for musicians, both in the popular and up-and-coming arenas.
Number of users: ~10-20 million
Alexa Ranking: 950
Type: Social Network
Description: myYearbook bears the distinction of being founded by two high school students – a brother and a sister from New Jersey. While the site has struggled to stand out from its larger brethren, it does offer a variety of social features, including the ability to earn virtual currency called “Lunch Money” that can be used for profile upgrades and donating to social causes. myYearbook also offers a number of social games and embedded videos. Unfortunately, the site has a rather dubious history of selling user account information to less-than-desirable companies, resulting in users receiving spam e-mail that contains adult content. It also has an extremely strong emphasis on dating components, which some users have complained have resulted in sexual harassment from other users.
Number of users: 30-40 million
Alexa Ranking: 1,149
Type: Alternate Reality Network
Description: Neopets is yet another social game geared towards children. Kids log in, create their Neopets, and then roam around the world of Neopia, playing social games, making friends with other pet owners and earning Neopoints. Neopets is notable for its trademarked “immersive advertising,” which incorporates real-world advertising messages into Neopets. This strategy has been extremely controversial since there is an ethical question of marketing products to children who may not understand that they’re being marketed to. Since Neopets is also very big on merchandising and even includes a virtual mall within the game, some parents and activist groups have targeted Neopets. There is a premium version of Neopets available as well, and it removes much of the advertising content for paying subscribers.
Number of users: ~22 million (and 1 million social networks)
Alexa Ranking: 135
Type: Cohort Network
Description: Ning is a social network that allows users to create their own social networks. It incorporates many aspects from other social networks (such as blogs, comment forums, rich media and friends) and gives users complete control over the communities. What’s neat about Ning is that it allows users to be a part of a social network that is entirely tailored to their interests, rather than part of a giant conversation among disparate groups of friends (like one might experience on Facebook or Twitter). Ning’s concept will have big implications for the future of social networking.
Number of users: ~50 million
Alexa Ranking: 77
Type: Social Network
Description: Orkut is a social network operated by Google, and it’s open freely to anyone with a Google account. If you’ve never heard of it, don’t feel too bad; Orkut is far more popular in Brazil and India than it is in the United States. But what Orkut has to offer is a nice, streamlined social network that plays nicely with Google products. Much like other social networks, it offers the ability to store photos, the ability to link videos, the ability to carry on conversations with other members, and so forth. Unfortunately, as a social network, it seems fairly limited unless you can find a large group of friends with which to use the more advanced features (such as video chatting and testimonials about other users and groups).
Number of users: ~8 million
Alexa Ranking: 3,459
Type: Alternate Reality Network
Description: Poptropica is another social game geared at kids. Unlike some of its brethren, Poptropica is educational in nature (it’s owned by Family Education Network, which is in turn owned by media publisher Pearson). The setup of the game revolves around virtual islands that can be explored. Players can make friends through scripted interactions that protect them from revealing personal information, and the game’s content is free for all users (though a virtual economy exists for those who want to upgrade their experience).
Number of users: Unknown
Alexa Ranking: 1,806
Type: Aggregator
Description: You might be familiar with Propeller under its original name: Netscape.com. In 2007, AOL (who owns both Netscape and Propeller) transferred Netscape’s Social Media Service to Propeller.com. It’s hard to say how successful the site has been; it was purported to be a Digg-killer early on, but whereas Digg stories can get hundreds or thousands of supporters, Propeller stories seem to never get past the double-digits. In structure, it’s very similar to Digg; users can “prop” a story or “drop” it, and the most popular stories appear on the main page. One advantage Propeller does have over Digg is that its categories cover a broader spectrum. (Digg is still rooted in categories of interest to adult males.)
Number of users:
Alexa Ranking: 352
Type: Aggregator
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Alexa Ranking: 244
Type: Social Media Network
Description: Scribd (pronounced “Scribed”) is a specialized social network that offers users the opportunity to share documents. And no, we’re not just talking about a bunch of people sharing Word files here — these are academic papers, business presentations, biographies, novels, and more put together for readers to comment on, link to, and build upon.
Second Life
Number of users:
Alexa Ranking: 3,985
Type: Alternate Reality Network
Description: Second Life is not a Web site, but a simulator of sorts that users engage much like a game. But the thing about Second Life is that it’s not really a game as much as it’s a virtual place where virtually anything can happen. Users can attend concerts, watch interviews with personalities, go to parties, have dances, or even get a little wild and engage in more X-rated activities. It’s all possible in this virtual world, and while many people (myself included) have dismissed it as being a footnote in future history rather than the next big thing, it still has a large number of users and many interesting facets.
Number of users:
Alexa Ranking: 1,255
Type: Aggregator
Description: Before blogs caught on, Slashdot was one of the biggest things to hit the tech community. Slashdot’s focus was summarized in its tagline: “News for nerds. Stuff that matters.” It was a site that really popularized the modern style of blogs today (with tags, comments, feeds, dynamic appearance, and so forth), and it was also a site that helped to increase interest in open source software. This was in large part due to its passionate and knowledgeable user community. Unfortunately, Slashdot has lost a lot of its relevance today, and while traffic has been strong over the last year, Slashdot has a much smaller impact on the Internet than it once did.
Stardoll
Number of users:
Alexa Ranking: 1,304
Type: Social Network / Alternate Reality Network
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Alexa Ranking: 123
Type: Social Network
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Alexa Ranking: 896
Type: Aggregator
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Alexa Ranking: 14
Type: Social Network / Mobile Network
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Xanga
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Urbanchat
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Whyville
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Yelp
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Youtube
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Yuku
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Definitions of terminology
Alexa Ranking: A ranking obtained from Alexa.com. Note that these rankings are only useful relative to one another and have limited usefulness when used to rank the importance or prominence of Web sites overall. Alexa rankings are derived from information gathered by those who use the Alexa toolbar. As such, there are serious questions about the bias of Alexa rankings and the precision and reliability of the measures.
Alternate Reality Network: A social network built around a game world or some sort of alternate reality.
Aggregator: A specialized social network that compiles articles or Web pages (typically News or Blog RSS feeds) from other Web sites and presents it on a single page, typically by headline.
Blog (a.k.a. Web log): A Web site where a single personality or small group of personalities posts up articles of interest for an audience with the expectation that some readers will comment or provide trackbacks to their own blogs.
Cohort Social Network: A specialized social network that attempts to bring users together on the basis of some common industry, interest, occupation or trait.
Crowdsourcer: A specialized social network that is built upon asking users to create written content such as articles, guides, reviews or opinion pieces.
RSS Feed: A form of “Really Simple Syndication” that allows users to take a Web site’s content and read it through a third-party application such as Google Reader, Microsoft Outlook or Technorati.
Social Network: A general term for social media Web sites built around making friends with individuals.
Social Media Network: A specialized social network that provides a directory of specific media (video, music, documents, images) for users to build upon and share with others.
Wiki: A network of articles on a topic or theme of interest that can be created, edited or updated by any user.
