They're Not Facebook

By Saleha Mohsin

They're Not Facebook

Facebook, MySpace, and Twitter are the royal family of social networking sites in the U.S., but that doesn't mean they rule the virtual world overseas. To be sure, Facebook ranks No. 1 in some countries—Britain, France, and Spain are smitten, among others—but even there it faces healthy competition from other players, some local and some global.

Social networking sites sometimes migrate unexpectedly across borders: Pioneering U.S. site Friendster, for instance, has faded dramatically back home but has found receptive new markets in Asia, while Google's Orkut is a star in Brazil. Many of Facebook's fiercest rivals around the world are homegrown champions. With 200 million registered users, China's Qzone vies for the title of the world's largest social networking site, while VKontakte is far and away the largest player in Russia.

Click on to meet some of the up-and-coming social networking sites from around the world, ranked from largest to smallest.