I'm not really into Social Networks, I guess you can tell by the fact that I'm on HackerNews. However I can provide some insight in what's the panorama in the other half of the world.
Facebook is still king, everyone uses it, everyone has it. I use it exclusively for groups (school group, friends group) since it's easy to post questions or info in there and make sure everyone reads it. I also use it to chat with people (although via Pidgin, I barely go to facebook.com). I do see however a huge ammount of traffic in my feed. So I guess it's not going anytime soon.
Whatsapp is hugely popular. Everyone uses it, even for work related stuff. I'm not sure why it's not as popular in the US/Europe (I guess because of iMessage?) But calls/SMS are barely a thing, everything is Whatsapp now.
Sadly, I'm not a big fan of it, it's great for sending quick messages and talk something in a group, but people here use it for everything which means I have to get my hands off the keyboard and type in a tiny touch screen to talk with someone.
You usually get randomly added to Whatsapp groups too, where you get invited to parties and stuff like that, I'm not a big fan of this either, since it's really easy to miss a message. However, I reckon my social life has improved considerably since I got Whatsapp because of all the invites I get now.
Twitter has gotten very big lately too, I started using Twitter about 3 years ago, and I mostly use it to follow tech people and get news, probably the same way most of you use it. However, my friends use it as some kind of Facebook. They tweet everything they are doing, and they also maintain conversations using it. I think this is silly, I don't know why they do it, you can know everything about someone by just reading his Twitter feed.
Instagram is not huge but it's catching up. It's mostly used by girls and hipster/cool/popular guys (not sure how to describe them). I never go there and I really don't care.
Snapchat/Tumblr/YikYak are not even thing, heck, I don't even know what YikYak is supposed to be.
I wish more people would start using IRC, but well, I guess that's not happening.
I'm not really into Social Networks, I guess you can tell by the fact that I'm on HackerNews. However I can provide some insight in what's the panorama in the other half of the world.
Facebook is still king, everyone uses it, everyone has it. I use it exclusively for groups (school group, friends group) since it's easy to post questions or info in there and make sure everyone reads it. I also use it to chat with people (although via Pidgin, I barely go to facebook.com). I do see however a huge ammount of traffic in my feed. So I guess it's not going anytime soon.
Whatsapp is hugely popular. Everyone uses it, even for work related stuff. I'm not sure why it's not as popular in the US/Europe (I guess because of iMessage?) But calls/SMS are barely a thing, everything is Whatsapp now. Sadly, I'm not a big fan of it, it's great for sending quick messages and talk something in a group, but people here use it for everything which means I have to get my hands off the keyboard and type in a tiny touch screen to talk with someone. You usually get randomly added to Whatsapp groups too, where you get invited to parties and stuff like that, I'm not a big fan of this either, since it's really easy to miss a message. However, I reckon my social life has improved considerably since I got Whatsapp because of all the invites I get now.
Twitter has gotten very big lately too, I started using Twitter about 3 years ago, and I mostly use it to follow tech people and get news, probably the same way most of you use it. However, my friends use it as some kind of Facebook. They tweet everything they are doing, and they also maintain conversations using it. I think this is silly, I don't know why they do it, you can know everything about someone by just reading his Twitter feed.
Instagram is not huge but it's catching up. It's mostly used by girls and hipster/cool/popular guys (not sure how to describe them). I never go there and I really don't care.
Snapchat/Tumblr/YikYak are not even thing, heck, I don't even know what YikYak is supposed to be.
I wish more people would start using IRC, but well, I guess that's not happening.