Social networks are web-based services that allow individuals to create a public profile, to create a list of users with whom to share connections, and view and cross the connections within the system. When it comes to social networking our top choices has always been either Facebook or twitter. But, beyond these, there is a world of undiscovered social networks that definitely demands for attention. Whether its Facebook or twitter or Google plus, every site is designed with a different objective and its this quality that makes them unique and popular among users.
1. Instagram
Instagram is an online mobile photo-sharing, video-sharing and social networking service that enables its users to take pictures and videos, and share them on a variety of social networking platforms, such as Facebook, Twitter etc. Instagram was created by Kevin Systrom and Mike Krieger, and launched in October 2010. The service rapidly gained popularity, with over 100 million active users as of April 2012. Instagram is distributed through the Apple App Store, Google Play, and Windows Phone Store. Support for the app is available for iPhone, iPad, iPod Touch, and Android handsets, while third-party Instagram apps are available for Blackberry 10 and Nokia-Symbian Devices. The service was acquired by Facebook in April 2012 for approximately US$1 billion in cash and stock.(SOURCE)
2. Google+
Google+ (pronounced and sometimes written as Google Plus) is a social networking and identity service that is owned and operated by Google Inc. Google has described Google+ as a “social layer” that enhances many of its online properties, and that it is not simply a social networking website, but also an authorship tool that associates web-content directly with its owner/author. It is the second-largest social networking site in the world after Facebook. 540 million monthly active users are part of the Identity service site, by interacting socially with Google+’s enhanced properties, like Gmail, +1 button, and YouTube comments.
In October 2013, Google counted 540 million active users who used at least one Google+ service, of which 300 million users are active in “the stream”. In a 2013 survey, 30% of surveyed smartphone users used the Google Plus app at least once a month. 92% of US smartphone users had visited a Google web site or app in August 2013, according to another survey.(SOURCE)
3. LinkedIn
LinkedIn is a business-oriented social networking service. Founded in December 2002 and launched on May 5, 2003, it is mainly used for professional networking. In 2006, LinkedIn increased to 20 million viewers. As of June 2013, LinkedIn reports more than 259 million acquired users in more than 200 countries and territories.
The site is available in 20 languages, including English, French, German, Italian, Portuguese, Spanish, Dutch, Swedish, Danish, Romanian, Russian, Turkish, Japanese, Czech, Polish, Korean, Indonesian, Malay, and Tagalog. As of 2 July 2013, Quantcast reports LinkedIn has 65.6 million monthly unique U.S. visitors and 178.4 million globally, a number that as of 29 October 2013 has increased to 184 million. In June 2011, LinkedIn had 33.9 million unique visitors, up 63 percent from a year earlier and surpassing MySpace. LinkedIn filed for an initial public offering in January 2011 and traded its first shares on May 19, 2011, under the NYSE symbol “LNKD”.(SOURCE)
4. Pinterest
Pinterest is a company that provides an Internet service that they describe as a visual discovery tool. People use Pinterest to collect ideas for projects and interests. Users create and share collections (called “boards”) of visual bookmarks (called “Pins”) that they use to do things like plan trips, develop projects, organize events or save articles and recipes. There is also a like feature to save certain pins that may not fit with a board. The site was founded by Ben Silbermann, Paul Sciarra and Evan Sharp.(SOURCE)
5. Myspace
Myspace (stylized as myspace, previously stylized as MySpace)is a social networking service with a strong music emphasis owned by Specific Media LLC and pop music singer and actor Justin Timberlake. Myspace was launched in August 2003 and is headquartered in Beverly Hills, California. In April 2014, Myspace had 1 million unique U.S. visitors.
Myspace was founded in 2003 by Chris DeWolfe and Tom Anderson, and was later acquired by News Corporation in July 2005 for $580 million. From 2005 until early 2008, Myspace was the most visited social networking site in the world, and in June 2006 surpassed Google as the most visited website in the United States.
Myspace had a significant influence on pop culture and music and created a gaming platform that launched the successes of Zynga and RockYou, among others. The site also started the trend of creating unique URLs for companies and artists.(SOURCE)
6. Foursquare
Foursquare is a local search and discovery service mobile app which provides a personalised local search experience for its users. By taking into account the places a user goes, the things they have told the app that they like, and the other users whose advice they trust, Foursquare aims to provide highly personalised recommendations of the best places to go around a user’s current location.
The service was created in late 2008 and launched in 2009[3] by Dennis Crowley and Naveen Selvadurai. Until late July 2014, Foursquare featured a social networking layer that enabled a user to share their location with friends, via the “check in” – a user would manually tell the application when they were at a particular location using a mobile website, text messaging, or a device-specific application by selecting from a list of venues the application locates nearby.(SOURCE)
7. Flickr
Flickr (pronounced “flicker”) is an image hosting and video hosting website, and web services suite that was created by Ludicorp in 2004 and acquired by Yahoo in 2005. In addition to being a popular website for users to share and embed personal photographs, and effectively an online community, the service is widely used by photo researchers and by bloggers to host images that they embed in blogs and social media.
The Verge reported in March 2013 that Flickr had a total of 87 million registered members and more than 3.5 million new images uploaded daily. In August 2011 the site reported that it was hosting more than 6 billion images and this number continues to grow steadily according to reporting sources. Photos and videos can be accessed from Flickr without the need to register an account but an account must be made in order to upload content onto the website. Registering an account also allows users to create a profile page containing photos and videos that the user has uploaded and also grants the ability to add another Flickr user as a contact.(SOURCE)
8. Tumblr
Tumblr (stylized in its logo as tumblr.) is a microblogging platform and social networking website founded by David Karp and owned by Yahoo! Inc. The service allows users to post multimedia and other content to a short-form blog. Users can follow other users’ blogs, as well as make their blogs private. Much of the website’s features are accessed from the “dashboard” interface, where the option to post content and posts of followed blogs appear. As of September 1, 2014, Tumblr hosts over 201.3 million blogs.(SOURCE)
9. Friendster
Friendster is a social gaming site that is based in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia. It was previously known as a social networking service website. Before the site was redesigned, the service allowed users to contact other members, maintain those contacts, and share online content and media with those contacts. The website was also used for dating and discovering new events, bands, and hobbies. Users could share videos, photos, messages and comments with other members via their profile and their network. It is considered one of the original and even the “granddaddy” of social networks. The service became popular in Southeast Asia and is a major site in that region of the world.
Since the relaunch of Friendster as a social gaming platform in June 2011, the number of registered users has reached over 115 million. The company now operates mainly from three Asian countries; the Philippines, Malaysia and Singapore, and over 90% of the site’s traffic comes from Asia. As of 2008, Friendster had more monthly unique visitors than any other social network in Asia.(SOURCE)
10.Vine
Vine is a short-form video sharing service. Founded in June 2012, it was acquired by microblogging website Twitter in October 2012, just prior to its official launch. The service allows users to record and edit six-second long looping video clips, and revine. Revine is where you can share other peoples posts with followers. Some Vine’s are revined automatically based on what is popular. The videos can be then published through Vine’s social network and shared on other services such as Facebook and Twitter. Vine’s app can also be used to browse through videos posted by other users, along with groups of videos by theme, and trending videos.