Social Networks in Exile

The $100 billion Facebook juggernaut is going public. But remember Friendster and LiveJournal? They never died. They just fled overseas.

BY JOSHUA E. KEATING | FEBRUARY 1, 2012

LIVEJOURNAL

Popular in: Russia

A predecessor of both MySpace and Blogger, the social networking and blogging service LiveJournal was founded in 1999 by a University of Washington computer science student. The site quickly exploded in popularity due to its ease of use, and the "friending" function that soon became an inherent feature of social networking sites.

Though it's fallen out of favor in the United States today, LiveJournal boasts almost 2 million active users worldwide (plus almost 33 million accounts that are no longer active) but the site remains wildly popular in Russia and Russian diaspora communities. With over 2 million users, LiveJournal is by far the most popular blogging platform in Russia. It was sold to Russian internet company SUP in 2009 and now -- except for a handful of U.S. employees -- operates from Moscow.

President Dmitry Medvedev is an avid LiveJournal user. So is leading dissident Alexey Navalny. Last year, the site suffered a massive denial-of-service attack that many believe was targeted at Navalny and other opposition leaders who use the site.

KIMIHIRO HOSHINO/AFP/Getty Images

 SUBJECTS: INTERNET, BUSINESS
 

Joshua E. Keating is an associate editor at Foreign Policy.

 

DANADAMS

7:24 PM ET

February 1, 2012

no mention of

no mention of Japan/China/Korea??

 

MIKEJEB

1:32 PM ET

March 2, 2012

Agreed no seeing that either

I saw this on my iphone 5 and wondered the same thing. No news on that?

 

09BAYKID

12:07 AM ET

February 2, 2012

Facebook WoW

The day has finally come as many has long predicted and hoped: Facebook today filed its S1 registration.

We're combing through the numbers at present--we'll update as we get a better grasp on the figures--but here are the initial highlights.

~ Net income for 2011 reached $1 billion in 2011, on revenue of $3.7 billion, up from $1.97 billion 2010. As many outlets had reported, primitive decor Facebook indicated in its filling it sought to raise $5 billion, and will have the ticker "FB."

~ Facebook also revealed more specific user ship figures: 845 million monthly users at the end of 2011, on revenue of $3.7 billion, up from $1.97 billion 2010. As many outlets had reported, Facebook indicated in its filling it sought to raise $5 billion, seo advice and will have the ticker "FB." ~ Facebook also revealed more specific usership figures: 845 million monthly users at the end of 2011, with roughly half of those users active on a daily basis.

~ From what we see, CEO Mark Zuckerberg's annual salary is set at $500,000, which will be reduced to $1 in 2013; Facebook CEO Sheryl Sandberg had a base salary of $300,000 in 2011. ~ More to come..

 

WEBTASARIMI

4:01 PM ET

February 2, 2012

amazing

with an initial public offering of $5 billion wow this is amazing
web tasar?m

 

KUNINO

2:20 PM ET

February 3, 2012

More money market worship

The more money made available to buy part of Facebook, the more likely that we're seeing the dawn of the next Internet bubble.

 

SUPAH

2:18 AM ET

February 9, 2012

Yes

I agree. Except that the Social Networking "Bubble" is a few years old. But I believe that is a a good thing that Facebook is doing this. Gives people another outlet for Self Improvement and growth in their own lives. No more "The rich get richer, the poor get poorer" mentality.

 

PEARPANDAS

11:48 AM ET

February 9, 2012

With the launch of facebook

With the launch of facebook coins they've really set themselves up to be one of the major monitization companies on the net. I think this is a fantastic buy as in the next two years I expect Facebook to possible eclipse Google, especially with Facebook Games. That being said, these things are always hard to predict, so it is not a conservative bet.

 

LEESMALLWOOD

3:58 PM ET

March 4, 2012

An Social Giant on the Run...?

Although it's great for Facebook with the IPO - the recent developments i.e. Google+ have caught Facebook, twitter and others on the back foot - to say the least.

Google, the internet giant, having launched Google+ last July (2011) was immediately ridiculed for trying to 'compete' with Facebook.

But by listening to the G+ community, Google+ is now acquiring over 750k users per day.

Why should the other social networks be concerned? Well, the main reason is that efforts in generating content and following up with engagement - businesses can for the first time increase their online visibility through socialseo

This is a game changer when it comes to social networks as the content published on Facebook or Twitter isn't indexed by Google - because they're behind a protective wall.

So, expect an even great influx of businesses and users moving over to Google+ and leaving Facebook - If I were thinking about investing in Facebook I'd be concerned right now...