VK Russian Equivalent of Facebook Craps On Facebook At 50 Million Users to Facebook's 10 Million

ꕤ Article SOURCE http://blogs.telegraph.co.uk/technology/jamiebartlett/100011938/why-vk-is-beating-facebook-in-russia-it-lets-you-search-for-pirated-movies-and-sex/ http://blogs.telegraph.co.uk/technology/jamiebartlett/100011938/why-vk-is-beating-facebook-in-russia-it-lets-you-search-for-pirated-movies-and-sex/ Why VK is beating Facebook in Russia: it lets you search for pirated movies – and sex By Jamie Bartlett Social media Last updated: January 4th, 2014 I’m writing this post from Moscow. No sign of Edward Snowdon yet, but VK – Russia’s equivalent of Facebook – is everywhere. Russians are the most active social network users in the world, and spend more time on them than any other country. VK is the social network of choice there – it has around 50 million unique users, while Facebook has just over 10 million. It was reported last week that Facebook is leaking teenagers – it’s apparently not cool anymore. VK is the opposite: it is especially popular among the younger demographic. Why? Here’s a simple theory for you. Unlike Facebook, VK facilitates two things that young people want to do: search for sexual partners and watch (pirated) newly released movies. Facebook doesn’t. On VK, the search function is incredibly good: almost anyone can be found, and you can filter easily and accurately according to sex, relationship status, and preferences. According to the Russian users I’ve been chatting to, that has essentially turned the site into a free and comprehensive dating service as well as a social network one.  As I’m sure you’re all aware, online dating is big business. Good dating apps linked to your social media profile are incredibly popular. YouTube in fact started out as a dating site: and in many ways so did Facebook. Now – for good reasons – it has far more privacy options, and more of its users are taking advantage of that making it harder to find people to hook up with. Over the last couple of years, free dating and sexting aps such as Tindr and Snapchat have amply filled the void. Plenty of teenagers head there instead. VK also allows piracy to go almost unchecked. VK has an enormous catalogue of pirated moves. According to the Recording Industry Association of America, it is one of the most egregious piracy sites in the world. Facebook is necessarily strict on the subject of pirated material. But it is incredibly popular pastime: in North America, Asia and Europe, one quarter of internet users download or stream pirated material. VK might also be about to make a step toward respected establishment fairly soon. Moves are afoot to clamp down on pirating. Concerns over whether VK has cooperated with the Kremlin might also nudge the company into taking privacy more seriously too (VK’s boss recently offered Snowdon a job helping to improve encryption; he hasn't answered). When it does, it will quite possibly lose a few teenagers. But like Facebook, it will then start to pick up a broader base of users – the over 30s, the silver surfers and so on – which will more than make up for it. Jamie Bartlett Jamie Bartlett is the Director of the Centre for the Analysis of Social Media at the think tank Demos. He specialises in online culture and the dark net. He is currently writing a book on internet subcultures to be published in 2014 by William Heinemann. http://blogs.telegraph.co.uk/technology/jamiebartlett/100011938/why-vk-is-beating-facebook-in-russia-it-lets-you-search-for-pirated-movies-and-sex/ VKontakte VK is the largest European social network with more than a 100 million active users. http://vk.com/ ---------------------- ꕤ ---------------------- COMMENT VK sounds interesting (and MASSIVE), but I don't know how many English speakers are likely to be on there. Might sign on to see what it's about, even though I'm not really into a Facebook style format. The site itself says 100 million active users. ꕤ