History GermansLoveDavidHasselhoff / NewMedia

* The social networking site Friendster, while long-dead in its birthplace of North America and subject to AnyoneRememberPogs-style [[http://www.theonion.com/video/internet-archaeologists-find-ruins-of-friendster-c,14389/ jokes]] by ''Website/TheOnion'', remained ''the'' FriendingNetwork in large parts of Asia during the mid-late '00s, The company moved its headquarters to Kuala Lumpur in 2009, and the site's success mostly blocked the rise of Website/MySpace in the Philippines, despite [=MySpace=] offering the ability for users to befriend celebrities. While it did cease to be a social network in 2011, this was due to its transformation into a social gaming site instead, which remained popular in the region until they finally pulled the plug in 2015. By the time it was turned off for good, over 90% of the site's traffic came from Asia, particularly Southeast Asian countries like the UsefulNotes/{{Philippines}}, UsefulNotes/{{Indonesia}}, UsefulNotes/{{Malaysia}}, and UsefulNotes/{{Singapore}}.

* Website/{{Twitter}} is very big in Japan, and is popular enough that when Twitter shut down its more popular version 1.0 API in favor of the newer v1.1 API, "API" became a trending topic in Japan, suggesting that the change was rather controversial, while most Western users of Twitter were apathetic at best. It also helps that in Japanese, the same information can be conveyed in less characters than in most Western languages; a 140-character tweet in English may only have 2-3 complete sentences, while a short essay can be written in a 140-character Japanese-language tweet.

* During its short period of existence, Website/{{Vine}} was incredibly popular among African-American and Latino youth.

* Another social networking site, [=Hi5=], is based in California yet around 80% of its users live outside the US. For a while it was the most popular social network in Latin America, Portugal, and Thailand (though the rise of Website/{{Facebook}} has severely reduced its popularity in some of those countries). Currently, they're trying to follow Friendster and turn the site into a "social gaming" platform.

* British Website/YouTube user [[https://www.youtube.com/user/xbextahx xBextahx]] somehow became very popular in Japan, where she is known as Beckii Cruel. Her popularity in the UK and US has since gone up due to her collaboration with Music/{{Area 11}} on "Shi no Barado", as well as subsequent appearances with LetsPlay/InTheLittleWood.

* Website/{{Yahoo}}:
** Yahoo! is still very big in Japan because its information is better localized than Website/{{Google}}'s is there. It got to the point that, while Website/GeoCities was discontinued in North America in 2009, its Japanese version lingered on for another full decade. Not to mention the aforementioned Auctions and that Yahoo! is also a mobile carrier there, which was was only the case in the US through the Verizon acquisition. Granted, when its Japanese operations became a completely separate company after its remaining shares were sold to [=SoftBank=], Yahoo! itself was still declining in popularity elsewhere.

%%* Website/{{pixiv}} is popular among Chinese-speaking countries such as Chinese and Taiwan, due to any other Chinese art websites being rare.
* Website/{{Facebook}}'s popularity is starting to fade away in the First World, as it's starting to lose its "young people club" status due to older people starting to get on it (which is why Zuckerberg made sure to purchase Instagram -- this way, younger people would just move from one face of Facebook to another face), as well as due to specialized websites and apps are taking over specific functions of Facebook and doing them better. However, in India and Africa, it is still seen as the pinnacle of modernity and online interaction, and it still has very solid popularity figures in these regions.

* For unclear reasons, Website/LiveJournal is [[GermansLoveDavidHasselhoff the most popular host]] for [[UsefulNotes/RussianLanguage Russian-language]] bloggers, to the point where the Russian term for blogging is [[BrandNameTakeover derived from the Russian name]] of [=LiveJournal=]. A Russian company now owns the site, a number of high-profile Russian politicians maintain [=LJs=], Russian authors used LJ to publish excerpts or teasers for their new books, and it's even been theorized that the [=DDoS=] attacks on the site in April 2011 were caused by the Russian government in order to silence a critical blogger. [=LiveJournal=] is SeriousBusiness in UsefulNotes/{{Russia}}, to the point that so much of its activity is now coming from there that [=LiveJournal=] began moving most of its servers from California to Russia in December 2016, and then updated its terms of service to comply with Russian law in April 2017, cementing the service as a wholly Russian entity.

* The social media app [=TikTok=] was invented in China, where it is called [=Douyin=]. However, it is ''huge'' among teenagers and young adults alike in the United States, and has spawned meme after meme and trend after trend.

* ''Website/{{Neopets}}'' was created in the UK by two University of Nottingham alumni, with the original version of the site relying on British pop culture references (for example, Bruce started out as a picture of entertainer Bruce Forsyth). However, it's biggest audience by far is the US, where most of it's userbase comes from. This is to the point where the company is currently owned by the California-based [=JumpStart=] Games.

** Yahoo! is still very big in Japan because its information is better localized than Website/{{Google}}'s is there. It got to the point that, while Website/GeoCities was discontinued in North America in 2009, its Japanese version lingered on for another full decade. Not to mention the aforementioned Auctions and that Yahoo! is also a mobile carrier there, which was was only the case in the US through the Verizon acquisition. Since 2018, its Japanese operations had since became a completely separate company from Yahoo! themselves after its remaining shares were sold to [=SoftBank=].

** Yahoo is still very big in Japan because its information is better localized than Website/{{Google}}'s is there. It got to the point that, while Website/GeoCities was discontinued in North America in 2009, its Japanese version lingered on for another full decade. Not to mention the aforementioned Auctions and that Yahoo is also a mobile carrier there, which was was only the case in the US through the Verizon acquisition. Since 2018, its Japanese operations had since became a completely separate company from Yahoo themselves after its remaining shares were sold to [=SoftBank=].

** eBay knockoff Yahoo! Auctions quickly faded away everywhere except Japan, where it is by far the most popular site of its kind.

* eBay knockoff Yahoo! Auctions quickly faded away everywhere except Japan, where it is by far the most popular site of its kind.

* Website/{{Yahoo}} is still very big in Japan because its information is better localized than Website/{{Google}}'s is there. It got to the point that, while Website/GeoCities was discontinued in North America in 2009, its Japanese version lingered on for another full decade. Not to mention the aforementioned Auctions and that Yahoo is also a mobile carrier there, which was was only the case in the US through the Verizon acquisition.

* The VST Instrument Delay Lama by [=AudioNerdz=] is very popular and [[MemeticMutation Memetic]] in Japan, and making covers of songs using the instrument is quite common, and it's also used in the ''VideoGame/{{Atelier}}'' series for Hagel's different leitmotifs. It helps that's it's essentially a vocal synth with a virtual mascot, much like Music/{{Vocaloid}}.

* ''Website/{{Neopets}}'' was created in the UK by two University of Nottingham alumni, with the original version of the site relying on British pop culture references (for example, Bruce started out as a picture of entertainer Bruce Forsyth). However, it's biggest audience by far is the US, where most of it's userbase comes from. This to the point where the company is currently owned by the California-based [=JumpStart=] Games.

* During its short period of existence, Website/{{Vine}} was incredibly popular among the African-American and Latino youth.

*** Caramelldansen videos are now an AscendedMeme due to the original band making an [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EQbK3WPQEZM official music video]] to the Speedycake remix in which they are all depicted as animesque characters doing the very dance that originated from the meme. Warning, UncannyValley material in the video.

* In countries such as Mexico, Brazil, Indonesia, or India, SMS messages cost money per sending and their delivery is unreliable. Enter [=WhatsApp=], which came to fill this void by basically acting like internet-based SMS messages. As a result, not a single people from the aforementioned countries uses SMS messages anymore, but a very large part of the country uses [=WhatsApp=]. It is starting to spread to countries like UK or Spain, which have tons of expatriates who use [=WhatsApp=] to communicate with their peers from abroad.