MySpace Apparently Lost in Translation
by John Paczkowski
Posted on August 13, 2008 at 11:22 AM PT
Social-networking sites may be nearing a plateau in North America, but they’re hiking diligently upward abroad. Worldwide usage of social- networking sites has grown by 25 percent in the last year, according to a new study from comScore. That’s more than double the 9 percent growth seen in North America.
This rising social-networking tide overseas is, of course, lifting all boats, but none higher than Facebook. With 132 million unique visitors in June–up 153 percent from the same month a year earlier–Facebook is now the largest social network in the world. Its biggest rival, MySpace, had 117 million users in June, a 3 percent increase over last year. Why the gross disparity? Thanks to its new Translations application, Facebook now dominates several markets where it was once relatively unused. In fact, nearly 63 percent of Facebook’s users are outside North America. That’s the sort of thing that happens when you manage to translate your site into 89 languages.
Comments
I’m hoping to hear soon that Google has fired the entire Orkut staff, which looks to be some sort of bizarre affirmative action program for the already affluent.
Posted by Mac Beach at August 13th, 2008 at 12:06 pm