Facebook Named World's Most Popular Social Networking Website

Industry figures available Wednesday show Facebook has dethroned MySpace to become the world's most popular social networking website.

Slightly more than 132 million people visited Facebook in June as compared to the approximately 117.5 million that went to MySpace that month, according to industry tracker comScore.

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Facebook seized the social networking crown from News Corp-owned MySpace in April, comScore reported.

Facebook's moves to tailor versions of its website to languages other than English is credited with giving it a boost in international users that pushed it to the top of the social networking heap.

"Facebook has done an exceptional job of leveraging its brand internationally during the past year," comScore vice president Jack Flanagan said in a release.

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"By increasing the site's relevance to local markets through local language interface translation, the site is now competing strongly or even capturing the lead in several markets where it had a relatively minor presence just a year ago."

Ranks of social network users grew nine percent in North America but leapt 25 percent globally to 580.51 million people, according to comScore.

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The number of people using social networking websites climbed 66 percent in the Middle East-Africa region and 35 percent in Europe.

Twice as many people visited Hi5 in June as did in the same month a year earlier, while visits to Orkut, Bebo and Friendster increased by more than 30 percent at each of the social networking websites.

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"During the past year, many of the top social networking sites have demonstrated rapid growth in their global user bases," comScore reported.

"Facebook's recent ascension to become the top global social networking site has been spurred by its substantial growth across worldwide regions."

Visits to MySpace were up three percent in the month over month comparison.

While North America has 49 million Facebook users, Europe is "quickly catching up," according to comScore.

The number of people that visited Facebook in Europe in June was 35.2 million; more than triple what it was in the same month last year.

Source-AFP
SRM