The #RLTM Scoreboard: Social Networking Stats for the Week
| Facebook: | over 845 million users | via Facebook | |
| Twitter: | over 200 million users | via AllTwitter | |
| Renren: | over 170 million users | via iResearch iUser Tracker | |
| Qzone: | 500 million active users | via China Internet Watch | |
| Sina Weibo: | over 250 million users | via Forbes | |
| LinkedIn: | 150 million members | via LinkedIn | |
| Groupon: | 115 million subscribers | via Reuters | |
| Google Plus: | over 90 million users | via Larry Page | |
| Tumblr: | 44 million blogs | via Tumblr | |
| Posterous: | 3.9 million members | via SF Gate | |
| 11.7 million monthly uniques | via TechCrunch | ||
| Foursquare: | 15 million users | via Mashable | |
| 15 million users | via The Next Web | ||
| Tagged | 20 million active users | via The Wall Street Journal |
Please email marissa@modernmediapartners.com if you have additional updates, or a social network that you feel should be on the list.
Social Network Tagged Acquires hi5, Tops 330 Million Registered Users
Have you ever heard of Tagged? It’s the third-largest social network in the U.S., and is available in 220 countries and 18 languages, according to Entrepreneur.
Tagged started off around the same time as Facebook, but focused on the teenage, high-school demographic while Facebook spread rapidly among college students. But when Facebook began letting high school students in, Tagged lost out in the race. Tagged CEO Greg Tseng told TechCrunch that “Facebook beat us,” and “We were just another social network…but not in the top five.”
How did Tagged survive as Facebook continued to dominate the social networking space? By asking customers what they wanted, and adapting their focus. Tseng surveyed Tagged’s users and discovered that “75% of users were actually using Tagged to meet new people.” (Entrepreneur)
Tagged allows people to use filtered search to meet new friends, while Facebook isn’t very helpful with connecting to new people – it’s more about maintaining existing connections. Tseng capitalized on this feature: “We focused on being the best place to meet new people for any social reason,” he told TechCrunch.
The focus on social discovery – providing a platform for people to meet others, rather than just connect with existing friends – has allowed Tagged to grow alongside Facebook, with 80% of Tagged members also using Facebook. According to Tseng, there’s still a battle out for which company will be the leader in “social discovery.”
“The way you compete with Facebook is you become the leader in some other space,” said Tseng.
How did users respond to the change in focus? Numbers rose to over 100 million registered users before the acquisition of hi5 in December 2011. Now combined with hi5’s 220 million, Tagged reaches a total of 330 million registered users worldwide, according to an email from Steve Sarner, VP of Sales & Marketing.
Tseng told The Wall Street Journal that this acquisition also doubles the number of active users, from 10 million to 20 million active users. This expansion is reflected by internal growth, as the company doubled the size of its office and saw the number of employees grow from 50 to 200 in 2011.
The goal for 2012? Tseng said if he can double revenue this year, he will consider an initial public offering.
