Social networks
Hi5
With over 80 million registered users, Hi5 is very popular in countries like Portugal, Romania, Cyprus and Latin America.
Every registered user is able to create his/her own profile page and even customize it with HTML and CSS. Other features include photo albums, the ability of setting up a music player in the profile, comments and tags. The website supports 23 languages.
Orkut
Goolge launched its own social network, Orkut, in January 2004. The name originates from one of Google's employee, Orkut Büyükkökten. Membership is free, but only available for adults (over 18 years). Most of the registered users are from Brasil, which is also the reason why Google decided to move the management over to Google Brasil.
Founded by Mark Zuckerberg on February 4, 2004, Facebook has grown to be one of the biggest online communities. With over 100 million active users, it's the second largest network after Myspace. The website is available in over 20 languages and it is free to join for anyone aged 13 or older.
While other websites such as Hi5 or Myspace allow users to customize their profile page with HTML and CSS, Facebook is limited to plain text.
MySpace
Undoubtably the largest online community, MySpace has been public since August 2003. Its userbase (well over 200 million) consists of people from all over the world.
Friendster
Friendster is one of the oldest social networks. Unfortunately, it is not popular in Europe or North America, but is the network of choice for many Asian countries like Singapore or Thailand. To join the community (about 65 million users), one must be at least 16 years old.