Social Media > Facebook General Social Network List A list of friends-based social networks By Daniel Nations Daniel Nations Writer University of Texas at Arlington Daniel Nations has been a tech journalist since 1994. His work has appeared in Computer Currents, The Examiner, and other publications. He is a developer who has published apps in the Apple App Store, Google Play marketplace and Amazon Appstore; he also has worked as a data analyst and DB administrator. lifewire's editorial guidelines Updated on February 27, 2024 Facebook Facebook Pinterest Twitter Snapchat Instagram YouTube Online Dating Trending Videos Close this video player General social networks, or friends-based social networks, are those that do not focus on a particular topic or niche, but rather put the emphasis on staying connected to your friends. The most popular of these are Instagram and Facebook, but a number of popular friends-based social networks are available, including international ones. Facebook Carl Court / Getty Images What We Like Integration with other apps. Contains a built-in gaming platform. Robust messaging, group, and chat options. What We Don't Like Popular site for spreading false information. Game invites can get annoying. Questionable business practices involving selling users' information. Our Review of Facebook Originally a social network for college students, Facebook has grown into one of the leading social networks in the world. In addition to networking with friends and co-workers, the Facebook platform allows users to play games with one another and even integrate other social networks like Flixster into their Facebook profile. Sign Up for Facebook Hi5 What We Like Focus on social gaming. Some baseline features remain, including sharing photos and interests. Requires users to be 18 or over. What We Don't Like Has become primarily a gaming site with fewer social options. Friend requests are via emails instead of on-site. Our Review of Hi5 Hi5 is a popular social network with a large international base that gets its name by allowing users to give a high five to other users. These high fives are an emotive tool where you can express happiness, cheer on a friend, or give them a slap on the back. Check Out Hi5 Myspace What We Like Focus on finding and sharing music. Expanded to cover more areas of pop culture. What We Don't Like Not as popular as it once was. Site has deleted users' blogs without notice. Suffered a massive data breach in 2008. Long hailed as the king of social networks, Myspace has been steadily losing ground to Facebook over the past year. However, while Facebook has focused on adding utility to the social network, Myspace still reigns supreme in displaying your creative uniqueness, which makes it popular with people who like to decorate their profiles. Learn More About Myspace Ning What We Like Focused on making your own social network. Option to monetize. Ability to give your network a custom domain. What We Don't Like More geared to site creators than users. More about website creation than social media. Our Review of Ning Ning is like the social network of social networks. Instead of creating your profile and adding friends, Ning allows you to create your very own social network. It's great for workplaces that want to create a small community and families that want to keep up with each other. Learn how to create your own social network on Ning. Sign Up for Ning X/Twitter Twitter What We Like Ability to mute and block users and individual words you don't want to see. Easy to curate your feed to see what you want. Encourages brevity with character limit. What We Don't Like Site may show you content (likes, retweets) from accounts you aren't interested in. Moderation system can be opaque and seemingly arbitrary. Full of bots and fake accounts. Our Review of X/Twitter More of a micro-blogging service with social networking features, X has become something of a cultural phenomenon. With the ability to receive status updates on your phone, Twitter is able to keep people informed and rose to prominence when Barack Obama used it to keep people informed during his 2008 election campaign. The platform works via small, individual posts from users whom you can subscribe to. It's easy to use and share tweets. Some changes to how the site works in the past few years have made it possible to see content you didn't subscribe to, but it's easy to mute accounts – or even individual words – if you don't want to see them anymore. Go to X Badoo What We Like Ability to find people based on interests. You can do a livestream to hang out and meet new people. Wider availability of people not based on location. What We Don't Like Basically a dating site. Some features locked behind a membership. Slightly obtuse interface. Badoo is one of the most popular international social networks with a large user base around the world. It's available in almost 200 countries and offers options to connect to anyone and not just people within a radius like other dating sites. It includes the standard "swipe-to-match" feature of sites like Bumble and Tinder. But you can also do more focused searches based on interests and do live chats to connect with other people. Sign Up for Badoo Was this page helpful? Thanks for letting us know! Get the Latest Tech News Delivered Every Day Subscribe Tell us why! Other Not enough details Hard to understand Submit