So here are the cold hard facts [Thanks Comscore!]:

Top Social Media Sites for 2008

1. Blogger (approx. 222 million)
2. Facebook (approx. 200 million)
3. MySpace (approx. 126 million)
4. Wordpress (approx. 114 million)
5. Windows Live Spaces (approx. 87 million)
6. Yahoo Geocities (approx. 69 million)
7. Flickr (approx. 64 million)
8. hi5 (approx. 58 million)
9. Orkut (approx. 46 million)
10. Six Apart (approx. 46 million)
11. Baidu Space (approx. 40 million)
12. Friendster (approx. 31 million)
13. 56.com (approx. 29 million)
14. Webs.com (approx. 24 million)
15. Bebo (approx. 24 million)
16. Scribd (approx. 23 million)
17. Lycos Tripod (approx. 23 million)
18. Tagged (approx. 22 million)
19. imeem (approx. 22 million)
20. Netlog (approx. 21 million)

Top 15 countries, by Internet Population in 2008:

1. China: 179.7 million
2. United States: 163.3 million
3. Japan: 60.0 million
4. Germany: 37.0 million
5. United Kingdom: 36.7 million
6. France: 34.0 million
7. India: 32.1 million
8. Russia: 29.0 million
9. Brazil: 27.7 million
10. South Korea: 27.3 million
11. Canada: 21.8 million
12. Italy: 20.8 million
13. Spain: 17.9 million
14. Mexico: 12.5 million
15. Netherlands: 11.8 million

Worldwide Internet Audience

• Asia Pacific: 416 million (41.3%)
• Europe: 283 million (28.0%)
• North America: 185 million (18.4%)
• Latin America: 75 million (7.4%)
• Middle East & Africa: 49 million (4.8%)

If you’re a more visual person, here are some worthwhile charts to review [Thanks InternetWorldStats!]:

So, now that we’ve had our fill, what does this all mean?

Perhaps it shows us where we need to be spending a lot of our time in the online canvas. Does your ministry or organization have a presence in the top 20 social media platforms and websites? Does your content reach some of the largest internet user-bases in the world? Is it translated so that they can understand?

We’re in the business of being effective. Sometimes that means that we have to try to use our energies where it’ll have the greatest and largest “impact” because of sheer volume. Other times, not so much.

In wisdom, we must do all things, but if you’re a ministry or organization that wants to reach the people online, perhaps we should try to reach them where they sit too.

Just some food for thought.

On a quick sidenote, I’d like to say that I’m very thankful for the number of services and websites out there that can provide robust reporting for all of us who have other jobs to do. They are awesome!