Facebook is the fastest growing social networking site and has also taken the lead from MySpace as the site with the most users.
A study conducted by international digital measurement company comScore shows that Facebook now has a total of 132 105 users, a growth rate of 153% over the last year. MySpace has stabilised, at a growth rate of 3%, and now sports 117 582 users.
The comScore report attributes Facebook's success to its attempts to be more socially and culturally relevant to markets outside of the US. "Its introduction of natural language interfaces in several markets has helped propel the site to 153% growth during the past year."
According to the report, while its largest visitor base is still in North America, with a total of 49 million users, Facebook's growth in the region is a relatively modest 38%. "In every other worldwide region, Facebook's audience has more than quadrupled."
Growth in Africa and the Middle East is no exception, with a growth rate of 403%. By November last year, Facebook's South African network had over 400 000 users.
However, the strongest growth was in Latin America, where Facebook's visitors grew by 1 055% since last year.
Levelling out
A Datamonitor report published last year predicted the explosive growth of social networking sites would plateau.
The report said that, by the end of last year, Asia Pacific would account for 35% of the world's social networking memberships.
Europe, the Middle East and Africa would hold 28% of memberships, and the Caribbean and Latin America would hold 12%. The report states that by 2009, membership growth in all regions will have reached peak and completely levelled out by 2012.
According to the Datamonitor report, as the market becomes more crowded, it will become harder for social networking sites to remain independent.
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