From the Guardian:

“Facebook recorded international growth of 270% in the past year, according to the latest comScore data, which shows the site’s estimated unique user figure rising from 14.083m in June 2006 to 52.167m this June.

Tagged, though still a far smaller site at 13.167m users this June, grew by 774% in a year and Bebo by 172% to 18.2m users.

Hi5 rose 56% to 28.174m, Friendster 65% to 24.675m and Orkut by 78% to 24.12m.

And MySpace? Its user base grew by 72% in a year from 66.401m to 114.147m users.

Globally, Facebook and MySpace are strongest in North America with around two-thirds of their audience from the US and Canada, but the same is true of Bebo which has 63% of its audience base in Europe.

Orkut is strongest in South America and Friendster in Asia-Pacific. I don’t get on with either of those sites, but I wonder whether regional trends are down to seams of friend networks or particularly features that appeal to different cultural groups?

It would be interesting to look at the features and usage patterns on different sites to try and work out what the trends are here, and which sites have the most likelihood of forming international networks.”