The social networking phenomenon that is taking over the world country by country

Facebook is the most popular social networking site in 100 out of 127 countries, reaching over 350 million users across the planet.

Vincenzo Cosenza, the man behind Vincos Blog, focusing on the topics of social networking, social media and photography, has published a World Map of Social Networks. The interactive map uses analyzed data from Google Trends for Websites to visually depict the most popular social networks by country.

The map was first published in June 2009, when Facebook had more than 200 million users and was the most popular network in most places in Europe, Canada, Australia and the United States.

The updated map shows Facebook's continuing trend of global domination, where the social network is the market leader in 100 out of 127 countries analyzed.

Non-English speaking parts of the world have been "colonized" by the Facebook takeover, and rival social networks such as Orkut (India), Hi5 (Cameroon, Costa Rica, Dominican Republic, Ecuador, El Salvador, Guatemala, Honduras, Mexico and Nicaragua), Maktoob (Libyan Arab Jamahiriya, Oman, Saudi Arabia, Yemen), Cyworld (South Korea), Lide (Czech Republic) and Skyrock (Guadeloupe and Martinique) have been almost all but replaced by Facebook.

Some regions that have not been taken over include Russia and Kazakhstan (where social network V Kontakte dominates), China (where social network QQ is the market leader), Mongolia, Thailand, Peru, Romania and Portugal (where Hi5 is the dominant social network), and in Brazil and Estonia (where Orkut is the leading social network).

Vincenzo Cosenza's interactive World Map of Social Networks in December 2009 can be seen here: http://manyeyes.alphaworks.ibm.com/manyeyes/visualizations/world-map-of-social-networks-dec-2