Map Of Online Communities Reveals Staggering Social Media Shifts (PICTURES)

In 2007, XKCD produced a just-for-fun map of online communities, representing the relative size of each social network as differently-sized states. MySpace was huge, AOL smaller, and Facebook was half the size of Xanga.

Three years later, Flowtown has created an updated "map" of social networks that reflects current trends in 2010.

Based on data collected from Wikipedia, the Wall Street Journal, Alexa.com, and Facebook (among other sites), each network analyzed appears as a "landmass" on this "2010 Social Networking Map" that is a tribute to XKCD's version (and based more on hard data than the original, which was reportedly "based on the whims of XKCD’s author"). The size of each "region" reflects the estimated number of user accounts.

Facebook, with its 500 million members, is now a dominant presence on the map. Twitter and Habbo (a network geared toward teens) flank Facebook and occupy the next largest "territories," with 114 million and 178 million users respectively. The troubled MySpace network (population: 125 million) is labeled "Former Kingdom of MySpace" on the map. Despite its large size, a note on the map next to the MySpace "region" reveals the following information: "Not all users are active."

Toward the top of the map is a large "region" titled "Receding Glaciers of AOL and Windows Live," next to the tiny "AIM Tundra." At the very top of the map is a nether region, the "Land of Defunct Social Networks," which includes Yahoo! 360, Bahu, and Soundpedia.

There are also humorous nods to pornography-sharing communities, YouTube memes, and more.

You can view the entire "map" below, or you can view Flowtown's larger version by clicking here. Scroll down to see the 2007 version, then check out the nine coolest social media maps on the web here.

2010:

2007:

via XKCD
http://imgs.xkcd.com/comics/online_communities_small.png
Click here to see a map of Facebook, titled "The Republic of Facebook."

Comments

[AceNewsServices]

08:42 AM on 08/29/2010

Really good look at the Social Media Map of sites and how they perform across the web, really good article. It is amazing how the social maps have changed over time from the early days of facebook and twitter and how they are helping to make others recede into the background.

[jorgeumana]

12:13 PM on 08/12/2010

double cool !

[YouDontWantMeHere]

10:25 AM on 08/12/2010

is this game like Risk?

[JohnUSA]

09:58 AM on 08/12/2010

Why is Ebay on there?

[SilentSolidarity]

02:15 AM on 08/12/2010

Looks like the Soviet Union.

[Lahonda]

12:12 AM on 08/12/2010

Lame. How about a count of each of the communities by REAL countries?

That would be informative. But then HP would probably discover that 80% of their subscriber base is from Canada.

[WPF]

11:52 PM on 08/11/2010

This is so staggering.

[isis]

11:00 PM on 08/11/2010

I used to live in Xanga but they let the religious nuts take over.

[Nativesons]

08:59 PM on 08/11/2010

What a waste of bandwidth.

[shortyz]

08:07 AM on 08/12/2010

your posts are a waste of bandwidth.

quiet

[Ryan Hidalgo]

08:24 PM on 08/11/2010

Someone needs to nuke the strait of Rick Roll on Youtube.

[Red45]

07:43 PM on 08/11/2010

What's the "staggering" part of this story? I couldn't find it. Or do we have another misleading HP headline?

[DAVROS1]

11:24 PM on 08/11/2010

Maybe we're supposed to be staggering due to fatigue from repetitive overstated headlines.

[Red45]

12:44 AM on 08/12/2010

that's it. F&F

[Junglist119]

05:36 PM on 08/11/2010

Way to miss the point of the original drawing that Randall Munroe made with this so called "updated" version.

[jamesdavidfinch]

04:58 PM on 08/11/2010

Now this is cool as well a serious love the maps.

[petekwando]

04:33 PM on 08/11/2010

I'd love it if Randall Monroe and/or Flowtown updated this every few years.

[Claw2122]

03:32 PM on 08/11/2010

Don't see IMVU on either of them