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Initially developed as a tool to monitor web traffic, Alexa provides traffic information including page rank and visitor statistics.Sites are “rated” and a lower number means a higher ranking.

Originally, Alexa was targeted mainly to webmasters, so any early rankings may not have been representative samples of true Internet traffic.Today’s Alexa rankings use different calculations, making them a bit more true to scale.

Here’s a list of the Top 10 Social Sites, according to Alexa, world-wide:

1. YouTube:Though primarily a video-sharing website, YouTube ranks among the Top 10 Websites of any kind on the Internet right now.Users can upload, view, and comment on videos.In April 2008, reports indicated that the site is host to over 83 million video clips, boasting more traffic than any other site.Ordinary computer users began to form networks and followings through YouTube; other users can subscribe to your video uploads easily and provide feedback.

1. MySpace:Long recognized as the most popular social networking site for teens and adults, MySpace allows users to develop an interactive personal profile, network with friends and contacts, maintain blogs, and share photos and music.

1. Facebook:Facebook organizes networks according to city, workplace, school, and region.Members can interact by sending messages to one another.Users can be members of multiple networks and even have access to their friends’ profiles.

1. Orkut:Orkut is an online social community designed by Google (and named after its creator, Orkut Büyükkökten) to help you maintain and expand your social life.Interacting with people you know more easily, sharing pictures and videos, and posting messages is easy.Networks of friends based on hobbies and interests, and even dating groups, are available.While Orkut’s original target audience was the US, it has become the most-visited site in Brazil, and the second most-visited site in India.

1. Hi5:Until 2007, Hi5 was one of the top 25 most-visited sites on the web.Still maintaining a huge market share and remaining one of the biggest social networking sites online, Hi5 allows users to develop a profile, join networks based on interests and hobbies, participate in groups based on geographical location or other commonality, and interact by sharing photos, music, and comments.Networks consist of first degree (friends), second degree (friends of friends), and third degree (friends of friends of friends).

1. Flickr:One of the earliest Web 2.0 applications, Flickr was originally intended to be an image and video hosting site.Flickr continues to be a popular image sharing site, and bloggers frequent this site that ranks photos by popularity and voting.Using tags and tag clouds, photos are categorized for easy sorting, and visitors and members can vote on their favorite shots.Photos can be stored publicly or privately, allowing publishers to decide if only their in-network friends can access them.

1. Friendster:Developed as a social network based on the Circle of Friends theory, Friendster displays “connection” paths between and among users, illustrating the “small world phenomenon.”Users are able to manage their friend lists based on interests and connections, and develop networks accordingly.By illuminating the connection paths, users can interact with other people they might be connected to and not even realize yet.Friendster is currently the one of the biggest social networks in the world, ranking first in Asia.

1. Skyrock:Though Skyrock is predominantly French, it has become recently available in other languages, including English, quickly gaining speed and popularity.Skyrock is a full Internet social network, with blogs, friend lists, networks, and sharing.

1. Bebo:A social networking site that involves having users develop profiles and friend lists, and allows users to join and participate in networks.Profiles often include quizzes among friends, video uploads or links to YouTube, and blog message sections.Special spinoffs of this social networking site have been developed for bands, authors, and other specific groups.

1. Digg:Digg operates on the premise of having members find and share content from all over the web.Like any true democracy, members vote on the popularity and social relevance of submitted items.Popular items are “digged,” others are “buried.”Items that users “dig,” such as websites, typically experience a sharp increase in Internet traffic.

Nielsen has released numbers for its estimates on the biggest and fastest-growing social media sites in the U.S. for the month of September, and there are a few surprises.

The biggest social network in the U.S. is still News Corp.’s MySpace, Nielsen’s numbers found. But the bad news is that its traffic has only grown by 1 percent since September 2007, keeping it just under 60 million visitors, and second-place rival Facebook has grown by 116 percent in the same time period.

Rounding out the top 10 social networks are (in order) Classmates Online, a mainstay that gets little press but a lot of traffic; business networking site LinkedIn; Microsoft’s Windows Live Spaces, which Nielsen says has shrunk by eleven percent since September 2007; Reunion.com; kiddie site Club Penguin, now owned by Disney; AOL Hometown, which the service plans to shutter soon; Tagged; and the AOL Community site.

Nielsen’s ranking of the fastest-growing social sites is a little more interesting. At the top of the list is Twitter, fueled by loads of press and tie-ins to coverage of the hotly contested presidential election, with 343 percent growth since September 2007. Following in second place is Tagged, which clocked in 330 percent traffic growth and which Nielsen says is most popular with the 35-49 age demographic. In third place is Ning, which is actually a service for creating community sites, followed by LinkedIn, music site Last.fm (owned by CBS Interactive, which publishes CNET News, Facebook, teen site MyYearbook, and then AOL’s Bebo.

In ninth place is Multiply, a social network for the nongeek set that recently announced that it had partnered with Microsoft to absorb the MSN Groups service. And in tenth place is Reunion.com, which Nielsen says counts the 55-64 age demographic as its biggest.