http://www.ecademy.com

<70,000 members>

• Uses layered subscription model – members have different options depending on their subscription level.
• Designed to connect people under philosophy of ‘people first, business second’ to generate future business ops.
• Site has an active amount of writing done on blogs.

http://www.facebook.com

<7 million members>

• Founded Feb. 2004, by Dec. of same year, site had over one million members.
• A valid e-mail address from 2,000+ universities and colleges makes one eligible for registration on site.
• 20,000 accounts created daily, 1.5 million photos uploaded daily.
• 7th most trafficked site on the web.

http://www.friendster.com

<27 million members>

• Founded in 2002 by Jonathan Abrams in Mountain View, California.
• Based on the ‘Circle of Friends’ technique for networking individuals in virtual communities and demonstrates the small world phenomenon.
• Members are usually young adults aged 21 to 30.

• Launched in 1999.
• Five different membership account levels ranging from free (including 95% of members) to "sponsored" or "permanent."
• Allows paying users to "voice post."

http://www.myspace.com

<80 million members>

• Founded July 2003
• Offers an interactive network of blogs, user profiles, groups, photos and an internal e-mail system.
• As of May 2006, world’s fifth most popular website.
• Has 250 employees and projects a 2006 revenue of $20 million.

http://www.orkut.com

<16 million members>

• Launched Jan. 2004.
• Almost 70% of users are in Brazil, 12% in the U.S., 4.3% India, 2% Pakistan.
• Designed to help users meet new friends and maintain existing relationships.
• Allows for ‘communities,’ users must be invited to join the community by someone already there.

http://www.ryze.com

<250,000 members in 200 countries; over 1,000 external organizations hosting sub-networks>

• Both paid and unpaid membership levels offered.
• Designed to link business professionals.

http://www.tagged.com

<2 million members>

• Designed specifically for teenagers between ages of 13 and 19.
• Does not allow HTML.
• When a member invites a nonmember to join they receive points. Once a certain # of points is reached, member is eligible to enter the casting call for a reality show on Tagged.

http://www.tagworld.com

<1.2 million members>

• Launched Nov. 2005.
• Advertises greater customization than MySpace and ‘tagging’ support for most of its content.
• Has notable feature of being able to upload music to the site for later playback from anywhere with an internet connection.

http://www.xanga.com

<40 million members>

• Based in NYC
• Users may customize how their Xanga looks using pre-made templates or custom HTML.
• Offers both free and paid service.
• Users may join a ‘blogring’ or create a new ring.

https://www.academici.com

• Membership is free
• Registered in England & Wales
• Designed to network with academics and researchers across continents and about content, facilitating the exchange of ideas, discussing research findings.

http://www.tribe.net

<300,000 members>

• tribe = kind of topical forum
• Originally had ‘grassroots’ approach to member-based forum monitoring; this was appealing to those who found sites like MySpace and Friendster to broad based or commercial.

http://www.xuqa.com

<1 million members>

• Designed for college students.
• Has much higher presence of blogs than a similar site, Facebook.com.
• Contains the ‘e-marriage’ feature, constituting a virtual marriage in the digital realm of xuqa (after which both involved members must change their display names to include the others surname).

• PROS: Free. Attractive interface, ease-of-use, supports blogging and IMs. Robust privacy options. No bandwith or hosting limits.
• CONS: Requires users to download and install a client app. Photo albums are not very versatile. Privacy settings can’t be changed
  (List from www.pcmag.com, reviewed on 10/12/05)

http://www.xfire.com

<3.2 million members>

• Combo of a social site and an instant messaging platform.
• Adds approx. 10,000 new customers each day.
• Works through downloaded software utilizing small user interface on desktop that presents a host of features including voice and text chatting as well as ‘Friend Tracker’ to show users if their Xfire friends are online and if so, what they are currently playing.
• Supported by around 200 games including World of Warcraft, Counter-Strike, Call of Duty and Quake 4.

http://www.deadjournal.com

<370,000 members>

• Weblog site allows users to maintain an online journal.
• Designed from LiveJournal server code, often labeled as the “Gothic LiveJournal.”
• In order to sign-up, users have to either pay for an account or obtain an invite code from an existing user.

• Founded in 1999, site has relationships with over 2,500 high schools.
• Anchored by user-created videos.
• Teens interact on site via blogs, IMs, video chat and message boards.
• Teens can also upload photos and videos, customize their user pages, link to their favorite user created videos and play interactive games.