I came across hi5, yet another social networking site, as the number 9 site on Alexa, according to traffic. It turns out that part of the reason for all the traffic, according to Wikipedia, is that hi5 is the leading social networking site in a bunch of central american countries. It continues to be intriguing to see social networking sites find niches geographically; after all, one of the pitches for the value of social networking is that it spans geographies! One hypothesis is that even though “The World is Flat”, the vortex argument still breaks at national borders, because most people don’t interact regularly with people in different countries? Will this continue? Or will globalization lead to a flattening of social networking?
One interesting way to answer this research question would be to study social networking in the EU versus social networking in Central America. My conjecture is that within the EU there will be a single dominant player, while across Central and South America there may be different players that dominate in different countries.
John
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