Social Network Sites

Social network sites focus on building social relations amongst people who share the same interests.  On these networks, each person has a profile, which includes information about them, some links of their choosing and pictures too.  Once these profiles are created, users are able to interact with one another to share ideas, activities, events and interests.  Some of the sites that you may wish to check out include:

1. Hi5 was founded in 2003 by Ramu Yalamanchi and is based in San Francisco, California.  In April 2009, Bill Gossman became the CEO and in November 2009 Alex St. John became the president.  In early 2010 they acquired Big 6 (a social gaming company).  Currently they have 2.7 million visitors each month from the United States alone.  There are also 46.1 million global visitors.
2. BEBO (Blog Early, Blog Often) is another social website that was launched in January 2005 by Michael Birch and his wife Xochi at their home in San Francisco.  Users here get a personal profile page where they can post their blogs, photographs, music, videos and questionnaires.  They can also add friends, send messages and update their profiles.  Today it is owned and operated by Criterion Capital Partners who purchased it from AOL when they planned to shut it down in March 2008.
3. Orkut is owned and operated by Google and is named after its creator Orkut Büyükkökten.  It exists to help users maintain friendships while making new ones.  There are more than 100 million active users on this website today.  However, it is not as popular in the United States as it is in Brazil, where it is located and operated from. 
4. Netlog, which used to be known as Facebox and Bingbox, is a Belgian social website that is especially targeted at European youth.  Lorenz Bogaert and Toon Coppens founded it in July 2003.  Today there 70 million registered users and 25 different languages being used on this site where you can create your own web page, publish music play lists, share videos, post blogs and join groups.
5. Habbo is a social website whose particular aim is at teenagers.  The Sulake Corporation have owned and operated it since its conception in 2000.  Today, there are 11 online communities (known as “hotels”) with users in more than 150 different countries.  They average 18 million unique visitors per month with 100,000 new avatars being created daily.