Monday, January 25, 2010

Goodreads - US


Goodreads, in an ambitious mission to improve the processes of reading and learning globally, is the largest social networking website for avid readers in the world. Members of this online community are able to recommend books to one another, share thoughts on what they are reading, keep track of what they have read and a wish list of books to read, form groups and book clubs, share suggestions, create and retrieve trivia about books, create lists of the best books and post their own writing. Taking into account the 3 million members and their 78 million books on their shelves, the success of Goodreads's mission is guaranteed.

 

Monday, January 18, 2010

Gogoyoko - Iceland


Gogoyoko is a social music marketplace where music fans can listen to music online and buy music directly from the artists. Rendering recording industry distributors and promoters obsolete, artists can now have complete control over the way their music is sold. Through the customized music store, fans interact and transact with artists, and listen to streaming music via a player that can also be embedded in other websites. The fair play concept of Gogoyoko returns 100% revenue to the registered artists and record labels, with 10% of all advertisement revenues going to international charity and environmental organizations. Artists and music fans can also donate. Apart from the music store, the website incorporates social networking properties where artists, record labels, music fans and professionals can create profiles, interact and contribute to the music scene and the store. Users can review and rate songs and albums, write blogs and get their articles published. Future Gogoyoko features include an interactive music magazine with new releases, exclusive interviews, reviews, special offers, and a worldwide music map that will give users access to concert listings worldwide.

Social networks comprehensive list (work in progress).
 

Saturday, January 16, 2010

Geni.com - US


A genealogy-building social networking website is Geni.com. Members can connect, share and preserve their lives through building of extensive family trees. Names and email addresses of parents, siblings and other relatives are added with profiles of biographical information graphically handled to create a complete personal family tree. Family trees are private and can be viewed only by family members or invited users of the extensive family network. Families work together to build tree lines of common ancestors and can also share photos, videos, events and discussions pertaining to the family history. Other features include family tree awards, discussion forums, notifications, tree merging and family history importing. So far there's more than 70 million profiles created by over 2 million users. It is remarkable how some family trees can grow to immense proportions, like, for example, The Big Tree containing more than 23 million profiles.

Social networks comprehensive list (work in progress).
 

Friday, January 15, 2010

Gays.com - Hong Kong


Often referred to as "the gay Facebook", Gays.com is a social networking website primarily centered around lesbian, gay, bisexual and trans gender people. Based in Hong Kong and launched in time to coincide with the sixth International Day Against Homophobia, it is designed for real people with real names and actual relationships. It offers members the ability to upload as many photos ans videos as they like free of charge. Other features include gay venues in cities around the world, connect with and meet new friends, explore friends interconnections with an interactive visual tool, and master the amount and visibility of personal information posted on a user's profile.

Social networks comprehensive list (work in progress).
 

Wednesday, January 13, 2010

Gather - US


A social networking website focused around an adult demographic is Gather. Built on the notion of interaction through cultural, social and political topics, it's one of the few recent start-ups that uses television advertising. Meeting people and sharing are the two major branches of interest. Meeting is established through connecting with people  today, sharing current interests and experiences, and not through finding people from the past. Sharing is based on user-generated content, such as videos, photos, art, opinions, recipes, thoughts. Members can create groups for a particular topic and have their own sub-domains where they can publish articles and share comments. There's also a rewards feature where Gather Points™ can be cashed in for gift cards at places like Starbucks, Target, Amazon.com, or through PayPal.

Social networks comprehensive list (work in progress).
 

Monday, January 11, 2010

GamerDNA - US


The need for a centralized community like this stems from the overwhelming amount of game news and games floating around, thus making useful navigation an extremely arduous task. Enter GamerDNA,  a social networking website for computer and video game players. It provides information through tags on games members have played, server names and guild affiliations, tools to help game players find people they have played with in the past, guilds and gamers to play with based on game style. Other features include automated game tracking, a database of games organized according to game play elements, and quizzes to help members pinpoint aspects of game play they are interested in and subsequently form connections with other players with similar interests. Storage of game histories, guild/clan memberships, scores and profiles, and screenshots of game accomplishments are all highlights of this online community.

Social networks comprehensive list (work in progress).
 

Sunday, January 10, 2010

Gaia Online - US


Gaia Online is a social networking and forums-based website built around the popular anime theme. More than 7 million unique visitors per month and more than 1 billion total forum posts contribute to this special ecosystem. Members create avatars, participate in forums for regular conversation, in-depth discussion or role play, form guilds of different kinds, play games to win various items of gold, visit and live in virtual towns, compete in rallies with customizable cars, sit in virtual theaters and watch anime, educational shorts, TV shows, etc., participate in various voting arenas, shop and trade items in a full-fledged Gaia Marketplace using real and virtual money, and enjoy quests either for advertisement purposes or granting items related to certain tasks.

Social networks comprehensive list (work in progress).
 

Saturday, January 9, 2010

Fubar - US


Fubar is the Internet's only online bar where the party never ends! This unique social networking site for users 18 and older is a virtual bar where members buy each other virtual drinks and engage in conversation. The currency is the "fubuck" earned through using the site, and registered members have the ability to buy a "Happy Hour" for everyone. Other features include file sharing and asking the community for opinions on different subjects. With 3,7 million registered members, Fubar also allows members to call one another anonymously.

Social networks comprehensive list (work in progress).
 

Friday, January 8, 2010

Frühstückstreff - Germany


Frühstückstreff (breakfast meeting) is a social networking initiative that puts the true meaning of the word social into practice. Members in more than 50 cities in Europe and Australia meet regularly (usually once a month on Sundays) for breakfast or coffee, and share hobbies and special interests, such as sports, business, food and drink, flora and fauna, womens' topics, culture and lifestyle, love and relationship, mens' topics, job and career, and travel with other members of the community. The site's event calendar covers more than 900 Frühstückstreff events every year including movie nights, concert visits, hiking trips, bike and canoe tours. So far, the site has 15,000 registered members and a locations database of more than 10,000 potential event locations.

Social networks comprehensive list (work in progress).
 

Thursday, January 7, 2010

Friendster - Australia


Friendster is a social networking website that allows users to make new contacts, maintain existing contacts and share online content with other users. With functions such as dating, discovering new events, hobbies, bands, and sharing  photos, videos, comments and messages, the site has more than 115 million registered users and over 61 million unique visitors a month. Due to a constant injection of venture capital from numerous VC firms, Friendster continues to grow and evolve, offering features in the form of 40 different types of fan profiles, an open platform developer program in 9 different languages, mobile and text alerts in conjunction with major mobile operators around the globe, and a wallet and payments platform that enables users to physical and virtual micro-spending worldwide (pre-paid cards, mobile, online and credit card payments). It is remarkable that over 90% of the website's traffic comes from Asia.

Social networks comprehensive list (work in progress).
 

Friends Reunited - UK


It started as a back bedroom internet start-up to exploit a UK market need to inquire about the status of old school friends. Within a year it reached 2.5 million members and kept on growing ever since, albeit at a declining rate. Friends Reunited is a tree of social networking sites (branching off to Genes Reunited and Dating) based on themes around searching of people at schools, universities, armed forces, workplaces, sports clubs and addresses. On the principle of user-generated content, registered members create profiles, share photos and videos, celebrate events and, in general, never lose touch with the past. With almost 4 million members currently, Friends Reunited has also incorporated getting in touch with old friends in Australia, New Zealand and South Africa.

Social networks comprehensive list (work in progress).
 

Tuesday, January 5, 2010

Fotolog - US


Fotolog is one of the oldest and largest online communities and social networking websites allowing users to express themselves with online photo diaries or photo blogs. What makes the site unique is not only the ability to upload and share photos, but also provide an easy way to connect and stay in touch with friends and family, receive personal feedback, create and join special-interest groups, discovering photos and people from different cultures at the same time. With more than 23 million members and 4 billion page views per month, it ranks among the top 100 of the world's most trafficked websites.

Social networks comprehensive list (work in progress).
 

Sunday, January 3, 2010

Flixster - US


An online community for movie fans of all genres is Flixster. Almost 3 years old it is considered one of the largest movie sites on the web, combining social networking characteristics, such as profiles, friends, meeting people, fun and games, with movie ratings, reviews and user-generated content. Flixster has also been active on developing applications for several other social networking sites including Facebook, MySpace, Bebo and Orkut. With 2 billion movie ratings and over 15 million unique visitors, the site features its own application for Google and iPhone.

Social networks comprehensive list (work in progress).
 

Saturday, January 2, 2010

Flickr - US


An image and video hosting website, and one of the best photo management and sharing applications in the world, is Flickr. With more than 4 billion images uploaded so far, Flickr keeps evolving in a myriad ways along two axes of development: one, by helping users make their content available privately or publicly with photos and videos coming in and out of the system from the web, mobile devices, computers and software management tools, and two, by developing new ways of organizing all this content. In addition to these goals, Flickr also implemented social networking features with profiles, tag clouds, comments, groups, geotagging, turning it into one of the most popular online communities today.

Social networks comprehensive list (work in progress).