The Financial Times is reporting that whereas MySpace is planning to add more language versions, local social networking operations are holding their own.
MySpace is planning to add locally-targeted sites in Brazil, India, Poland and Russia, adding to the 24 in 20 countries, in 12 languages, including French, German and Japanese, that they already have.
Overall though, it seems like there is still great scope for expansion globally. The FT tells us:
“In the US about 18 per cent of internet users use a social networking site. Across Europe, for example, the figure is just 14 per cent.”
Interestingly, although MySpace is the largest provider overall in Europe, at country-level a different picture emerges. In France, for example, local offering SkyRock still dominates.
Other services from Orkut.com, Grono.net, and MoiKrug.ru will ensure that MySpace’s venture into these new languages will be an extremely competitive one.
