Multilingual social networks but unknown to us ?

June 26th, 2008

If you follow the big social networks (Facebook, Myspace etc) you will be forgiven to assume that, its them who have all the users. There are several other social network in English with millions of users who are not covered in the news as often.

Also check out Social Networks in the Far East where Facebook is relatively unknown.

5 networks I can guarantee would surprise you ! With millions of users and still undiscovered by the geek community in the Valley/London. Common theme through all these sites are:

  1. They have the option to browse in several languages
  2. Their user base is very well distributed
  3. Most of the social networks were developed outside the US

Hyves.net

Number of Members: 7,000,000
Country of Origin: Netherlands
Created On: October 2004

The site doesn’t look like your typical Web 2.0 but has Dutch youth absolutely loving it. 70% of the users are Dutch. Think Bebo for Dutch speakers ! The site is so popular that the prime minister Jan Peter Balkenende built his profile on Hyves.

myHeritage

Number of Members: 23,697,081
Country of Origin: Israel
Created On: 2003

MyHeritage - Genealogy family tree - Family websites

As the name suggests its a network for family members. The site has over 2,733,433 family trees. Wow!

bahu

Number of Members: 300,000
Country of Origin: France
Created On: April 2007

Bahu Logo

The site is built for students by students, the team spread around Europe. The site looks good and is well designed with a lot of focus on usability which is fantastic. Although if I’m honest I don’t see anything new on the profiles which I haven’t seen on other social networks. Saying that you don’t have to be very very unique to be successful.


Fotolog

Number of Members: 20 million (unique) users
Country of Origin: United States
Created On: May 2002

Fotolog

Fotolog is one of the oldest and largest sites for sharing pictures through online photo diaries or photo blogs. The site was acquired by a French company for Euro 65,800,000. The site is very different from photobucket, flickr, slide etc. I think photo diaries have their own space on the web.


HospitalityClub.org

Number of Members: 386,550
Country of Origin: Germany
Created On: 2000
An unofficial Hospitality Club logo represents "two people with arms over each other's shoulders in friendship and waving for you to join them" in the shape of the letters "HC". It was designed in 2004 by Canadian Glenn Gobuyan in a style reminiscent of cave paintings to illustrate that "Hospitality is as old as humanity."

This is one the sites which proves the fact you don’t have to look Web 2.0 to be community site. You don’t even need to add your logo on the website :) . It has a very interesting story worth a read

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Posted by Raj Anand Filed in Bebo, Europe 2.0, Facebook, Fun 2.0, Social Networks, Web World


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2 Responses to “Multilingual social networks but unknown to us ?”

  1. Andrey Says:
    July 31st, 2008 at 8:52 am

    Hello,

    I thought this was a very nice post as i personally find facebook’s and myspace’s domination of the news a little bit over the top.

    I was also intrigued because I have recently been trying to find out what are the top 25 social networks in Europe (including non-Enlgish) and I have not been able to find that information. Would you be able to help?

    Thank you
    Andrey

  2. Raj Anand Says:
    July 31st, 2008 at 9:33 am

    Thanks Andrew. I’ll try and get as much information on multi-lingual social networks as possible. I wrote a blog on top French social network: http://blog.kwiqq.com/2008/07/07/business-and-youth-french-social-networks-viadeo-and-skyrock/

    Now working on top Italian social networks. Let me know if that helps



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