Facebook vs Orkut vs Yahoo! Mash vs MySpace, and some other Social Networking sites
Comments (4) 
73.5 million users and growing fastest
What I like about it
- Mini-Feed is useful in seeing a quick snapshot on the latest happenings within your network without going to several sites to check.
- The ability to supply how you know a person.
- Nice applications. Approximately 10% of Facebook applications I’ve tried are interesting and useful while others are not as good.
I think these can be improved
- Fixed 600 width and non-resizable
- Non-customizable design
- No built-in blogging functionality. Blogging can be done with applications such as Live Blog, but we don’t normally depend on addons for such important values like blogs.
- Tight security: profile only viewable by friends. How do you determine if a profile is your friend or not just by looking at the screen name which can be different from the real name?
- One account can only join no more than 200 groups. Unlimited is preferred.
Orkut
24.6 million users
What I like about it
- Simple design, Google philosophy after all
- Extensible width
- Ad-free
I think these can be improved
- Name. Honestly speaking, the Turkish name “Orkut” is very unfamiliar. Just a remark, as the brand name is not supposed to change
- Very few, if any, extensions
Yahoo! Mash
What I like about it
- Wider width
- Larger font
- Allows profiles to be updated by friends
- Mini-feed is also supplied
I think these can be improved
- Check boxes to select friends to add should be provided
- More group levels
- Informal language. I am especially not easy with the word “fugly”
- Profile with non-removable fields such as “What’s most likely playing on my iPod”… Excuse me, can I NOT have an iPod?
MySpace
107 million users. The currently largest site
What I like about it
- Integrated all-in-one solution that includes social networking, blogging, mail, favorites, forum, movies, events, media
I think these can be improved
- Inconsistent design
- Music landing page
- Spam, including spam invitations, protection
- Tons of ads
Other notable networking sites
| Name | Focus | Number of users (in million) | Comments |
| Windows Live Spaces | Blogging | 120 | Really eye-catching glossy design. Powerful blogging support. Try new Microsoft experience! |
| hi5 | General | 50 | An issue: the letter ‘5′ creates this word “hị” in Vietnamese. hi5 is still nice anyway |
| bebo | Schools & alumni | 34 | Nice and neat |
| friendster | General | 50 | Friendster is getting old. It needs more innovation. |
| imeem | Media: Music, Video | 16 | Possibly the best media site currently. Nice design and convenient upload process. Support tagging |
| Business | 15 | Very professional for business networking purpose | |
| Last.fm | Music | 15 | Attractive design, especially the logo. However, radio alone is not that fascinating. They could use more of music sharing |
| Xanga | Blogging | 40 | The ad on top is a huge barrier to this site’s design. Usability is a little messy |
Read more
Wikipedia, List of social networking websites
Mashable, Facebook Hammers MySpace on Almost All Key Features
Nerdlifestyle, Media restrictions
My choice
Facebook to keep in touch with international friends and English-speaking communities
Yahoo! Mash. Many young Vietnamese users rely on Yahoo! services
for socially musical networking
How about you?
Share your experience here…
Which site do you like best? What you wish your site had offered?
Products
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