It seems like the majority of the non-Facebook figure comes from Chinese language sites. Since social networking sites will quite likely be segmented by language for the foreseeable future, I don't think this really counts. In the English-language world, Facebook has serious network effect and you would be hard-pressed to combine all of FB's competitors into anything.
I agree dispersed social networking is coming... I'm not sure if "control" of data is the way to phrase the "problem"... Still, creating a dispersed network where each contributor controls where their data goes is a very hard problem.
Sort by Registered Users. You don't even need the Chinese language site (QZone).
Habbo + MySpace + Bebo + Orkut + Friendster + Hi5 = 679 million. Assuming 50% cross-over (which is a very high estimate), that means 340 million unique users, for just six social networks.
The sites I hadn't heard of aren't Chinese language sites but failed English language sites. But they are still failed sites. I don't go to my two Myspace pages, ever.
And in India, where Orkut used to be big, almost everyone I know has migrated to Facebook, so those numbers include a large number of accounts no one is using
The thing is, I doubt a decentralized social networking approach would really be allowed by the Chinese government. This kind of solution can only really gain ground in very open countries if at all...
It seems like the majority of the non-Facebook figure comes from Chinese language sites. Since social networking sites will quite likely be segmented by language for the foreseeable future, I don't think this really counts. In the English-language world, Facebook has serious network effect and you would be hard-pressed to combine all of FB's competitors into anything.
I agree dispersed social networking is coming... I'm not sure if "control" of data is the way to phrase the "problem"... Still, creating a dispersed network where each contributor controls where their data goes is a very hard problem.