How Do Top Social Networks Rank Across Continents?

I have often wondered if it's possible to actually develop more business contacts through social networks with better precision and speed than I currently do. The criteria here is - more contacts, better targeting, and faster results.

I came across this cool graphic chart on this french site which uses Datamonitor ranks for the top social networking sites across different continents. What's interesting here is NOT the rank itself , but the very important thing we normally miss while signing up with every second social network - And, that's "where do I want to develop my network?"

Even though Facebook is among the top social network, if I want to develop my business contacts/ social network in Asia - it's not the best option! In fact, Facebook is NOT even in the top 5 social networks in Asia by usage. The chart shows me that Friendster or Orkut would offer much more traffic and users in Asia. Similarly, if I'm looking at Europe or North America, my first stop must be Bebo and Myspace. That was cool to know!

See how Datamonitor ranked the social networking sites across continents:

North America:

1. Myspace
2. Facebook
3. Bebo
4. GaiaOnline
5. Nexopia
   

Latin America:

1. Orkut
2. Hi5
3. MetroFlog
4. Myspace
5. LiveSpaces
   

Asia Pacific:

1. Friendster
2. Cyworld
3. Orkut
4. Mixi
5. Myspace
   

Europe:

1. Bebo
2. Myspace
3. Skyblog
4. Facebook
5. Netlog
   

Africa:

1. Facebook
2. Hi5
3. Netlog
4. Yonja
5. Skyblog
   

Now this is the kind of information which one can use and get targeted growth in contacts at much faster rate than blindly going with the top social network. Go forth and multiply your contacts where you really want to!

The ONLY Search Market Where Google Is No.2

There is one search market where Google had to be content being No.2 - and that's in China.

According to the China Internet Marketing Network Information Center, Google handled less than 25 per cent of all Chinese web searches - and its share was shrinking rapidly. Baidu, a chinese search engine is the runaway leader with a 62 per cent of the market.

Surprisingly, a research by Enquiro, a search engine marketing firm, reports that Baidu’s dominance isn’t down to technology. It's down to brand. In a blind taste test carried out by the firm this month, the Chinese version of Google significantly outperformed Baidu.

"With Google, the average search took around 30 seconds," says Gord Hotchkiss, Enquiro president and CEO. "With Baidu, it was up around a minute." But, the Chinese users still prefer Baidu. Baidu has actually become a brand for search engine in China.

If you look at the other markets where Google leads in search, this same story plays out just the opposite. In almost every other market, Google has become a brand for search (as in "I'll google it") and whether or not it's search results are best(I personally love them!), Google gets more users than every other search engine.

So, what is happening to Google in China is very interesting. We'll wait for how Google tackles this important market with an exploding internet population.