Social: FaceBook VS MySpace VS LiveJournal VS Others

[naerey]

Somehow I'm betting most of USA is using Facebook, but anyhow!

There's probably been a such topic already..
but surely not with vk.com ^^

Facebook
- USA
- Global/most popular

MySpace
- USA
- Musicians mostly

LiveJournal
- USA

Netlog
- European
- Mostly teens (?)

VKontakte
- Russia based, now internationalizing
- Gives more freedom (over facebook) eg. media sharing

Orkut
- Google owned

Google Wave
- Google owned. duh


All are International, but for one reason or the other they managed to grab hold in particular countries.. why?

Just because they had localized versions? Like netlog had it's version in some 6 european languages, whereas VK started as just plain Russian.

What's the next big hit?
Facebook allows apps and lots of great stuff. Personally I like it.
Though I've seen VK also allows to upload music and any kind of media... pretty much without restriction (?) people seem to like that...

Google's made it's Wave. Could it substitute or change our social sites? Sure, they're aiming for different areas. But not too different

[Sharky]

They're all rubbish, and as far as I can tell, Google Wave is designed as a replacement for email.
I hope they all go away. Facebook used to be good, but then it became popular, and they added stuff like 'Applications', and it kept going down for 'maintenance'.

[ah-blabla]

The Facebook architecture just isn't up to the user numbers it gets now: the FB chat function hardly works, and sometimes the whole site just goes slow. Also, a reason that FB isn't as popular outwith english speaking countries is because its translations are pretty poor: The German and Polish translations which I tried were quite bad, so I doubt other translations are very good.

BTW, Bebo is quite popular in the UK still, but more and more people are switching to FB.

[ubahobu4]

For my mind this comparison is incorrect. Those sites are aiming different auditory.
For example: LiveJournal is a blog engine, VKontakte is social network engine.
They have different goals and purpose.

You can compare myspace, vkontakte, facebook because they have similar idea. (Not sure about Netlog and Orkut never used those). But LiveJournal and Google Wave are just different.

[adamparkzer]

I don't like social networking sites. I voted for Facebook, because even if I don't like social networking sites, I still use it. But if Twitter had been on the list, I would've probably selected that.

Facebook sort of stole Twitter's @ concept, now that you can tag people in your status updates with the @ command. However, Twitter still has an advantage that you can advertise more easily to a wider range of audience, not just your friends.

[fractalfeline]

I have a Facebook account. Mostly my friends were on it so I thought Why not? So I've had it for years now. I've never tried the others. Nowadays, I use it to play the mini-games and applications, not so much for the social networking. With my friends scattered post-graduation, I find that Facebook just ain't the same as face-to-face socializing.

I suppose social networking is the Thing now. It's just not very interesting to me, personally though.

Sorry for topic hijacking!

[srikri]

I voted for orkut and most of the time use orkut to get in touch with relatives and friends. Orkut is easy to use, navigate and understand compared to other social networking and the feel of the web page also makes difference. One of the other reason could be due to many localized versions which other social networking does not have except for facebook.

[boris333]

I will be the first to admit that I hate pretty much all social networking sites, if not for the way they are designed or some other technical aspect, then for the people who tend to make said sites the mainstay of their lives and social basis.

Does anyone else here remember when we actually kept in touch by calling our friends or by actually going over to visit with them and do other activities with them?

Does anyone else here remember when a picture of a person nearly passed out in a puddle of their own vomit was met with revulsion rather than with 'ohey, this would make a great profile pic'?

Social networking sites were intended to help people bolster their social lives, but what happened instead followed the law of unforeseen consequences. Rather than improving a person's social life, it has often simply replaced said life.

If you want to improve your social life, get off of your computer and do social activities with your friends, rather than sit at your keyboard typing 'omg, lol!' and whatever few words are left in your social vocabulary.

[naerey]

I will be the first to admit that I hate pretty much all social networking sites, if not for the way they are designed or some other technical aspect, then for the people who tend to make said sites the mainstay of their lives and social basis.

Does anyone else here remember when we actually kept in touch by calling our friends or by actually going over to visit with them and do other activities with them?

Does anyone else here remember when a picture of a person nearly passed out in a puddle of their own vomit was met with revulsion rather than with 'ohey, this would make a great profile pic'?

Social networking sites were intended to help people bolster their social lives, but what happened instead followed the law of unforeseen consequences. Rather than improving a person's social life, it has often simply replaced said life.

If you want to improve your social life, get off of your computer and do social activities with your friends, rather than sit at your keyboard typing 'omg, lol!' and whatever few words are left in your social vocabulary.

Wow, you have a rather pessimistic view on society..
I do agree on some of your points, as for a few people it has 'decreased' what social life they had, especially with all those Facebook Apps/Quizzes that people keep doing..
But if you look on the positive side of it, it allows you to stay in contact with people that live far away.
Could you be knowing what a relative was doing, seeing his photos every now and then and talking with him, when he's 500km away?

Personally I have a few relatives that live really far, in other countries, and my phone bill would be outrageous if I called them. Sure, there's skype, but it's not too comfortable when here's 6pm and over there 6am :/
The same with friends, although it's really hard to keep friendships over long distances...
Something like "If I don't see you, I forget about you" :/
With social sites I guess it just takes more time...

[Sharky]

But if you look on the positive side of it, it allows you to stay in contact with people that live far away.

Sure, if 'staying in contact' means being on a 'friend' list. I've seen people having thousands of friends of facebook... how is that anywhere near a deep meaningful friendship. Going back to the root name of this sort of site, 'social networking', yeah sure, it's keeping a healthy number of people in a network, but calling them friends is just wrong. If a friendship degrades to just reading short one or two line status updates, that's hardly a friendship worth having.

Could you be knowing what a relative was doing, seeing his photos every now and then and talking with him, when he's 500km away?

Email? Post? Phone (I know this is addressed later...)? ....God forbid, write a letter?

Personally I have a few relatives that live really far, in other countries, and my phone bill would be outrageous if I called them. Sure, there's skype, but it's not too comfortable when here's 6pm and over there 6am :/
The same with friends, although it's really hard to keep friendships over long distances...
Something like "If I don't see you, I forget about you" :/
With social sites I guess it just takes more time...

Then call two or three hours later, I doubt you go to bed at 8/9pm! Plus, with Skype you can do video calling/conferencing.

Please note, this isn't a personal attack on you or anyone else here, just a general rant on things I've heard again and again by different people. Just happens you managed to get it in one post!