Historically, Facebook.com has touched the life of 500 millionth individual, knocking down any other social sites of the world. Six years back when facebook was started exclusively for Harvard students, nobody had predicted that this University specific social network will spin the world’s major social and political situations so efficiently.
Facebook has powered past Orkut to become the number-one social networking site in India, according to comScore. The Palo-Alto based company recorded 20.87 million unique visitors in July 2010, a massive leap from 7.47 million in July 2009.
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Orkut was close behind with 19.87 million unique visitors last month but growth has stalled – this is only a modest increase from the 17.07 million recorded last year. Twitter also saw strong growth off a lower base, rising from 987,000 unique visitors in July 2009 to 3.34 million a year later.
| Top Social Networking Sites in India July 2010 vs. July 2009 Total India – Age 15+, Home & Work Locations* Source: comScore Media Metrix | |||
| India | Total Unique Visitors (000) | ||
| Jul-2009 | Jul-2010 | % Change | |
| Total Internet : Total Audience | 35,028 | 39,562 | 13 |
| Social Networking | 23,255 | 33,158 | 43 |
| Facebook.com | 7,472 | 20,873 | 179 |
| Orkut | 17,069 | 19,871 | 16 |
| Bharatstudent.com | 4,292 | 4,432 | 3 |
| Yahoo! Pulse | N/A | 3,507 | N/A |
| Twitter.com | 984 | 3,341 | 239 |
| LinkedIn.com | N/A | 3,267 | N/A |
| Zedge.net | 1,767 | 3,206 | 81 |
| Ibibo.com | 1,562 | 2,960 | 89 |
| Yahoo! Buzz | 542 | 1,807 | 233 |
| Shtyle.fm | 407 | 1,550 | 281 |
It’s bad news for Google, which owns Orkut, and pretty much any social network that competes directly with Facebook. Google has been desperately trying to get on top of the social media trend and has launched products such as Buzz, which didn’t seem to get much buzz after the first week or two. But how can they compete when they can’t even beat Facebook with their own social network? Orkut had more than double the number of Indian users than Facebook a year ago and now it’s firmly in the number-two position – how long before it’s an also-ran? Google is now talking about launching a “Facebook Killer” but all that seems to be happening so far is that it’s getting killed by Facebook in the social web.
Finally, Facebook wons the Social Networking Match.