Latin America joins Facebook in droves

The web-tracking company ComScore has released a report that confirms Facebook has overtaken MySpace in global users, and that users from Latin America are the major driving force behind the social networking site's surge.

According to the ComScore data, Facebook's visitors (defined as unique hits) grew by a whopping 1055% in Latin America since June 2007. This percentage jump in Facebook use compares with a reported 33% uptick in overall social network use from witin Latin America, and is more than double the percentage change in any other world market since last year.

Other SN sites such as Friendster, Orkut, Sonico and Hi5 appear to remain popular in the region, as well; though the referenced data doesn't appear comparable, VentureBeat's Eric Eldon writes that "Sonico has claimed to be the fastest growing social networking site in Latin America," that Hi5 still has the most registered users in the region, and that Orkut (in Portuguese) continues to dominate Brazil, the largest LAC market.

As for Facebook's rise: according the National Business Review, "the incredible worldwide growth is largely attributed to Facebook’s recent decision to translate the site into other languages, with Latin America only having 1 million users per month a year previous, and all of Asia Pacific [the second fast-growing region, according to the report] only 4 million."

Sources: ComScore, VentureBeat, AFP, Washington Post, National Business Review