hi5 is a social networking website, which, throughout 2007, was one of the 25 most visited sites on the Internet (among people who have the Alexa toolbar installed on their browser.^[1]) The company was founded in 2003 by Ramu Yalamanchi who is also the current CEO.^[2][3] As of February 2008, hi5 claimed to have over 70 million registered members^[4]

Features

In hi5, users create an online profile in order to show information such as interests, age and hometown and upload user pictures where users can post comments. hi5 also allows the user to create personal photo albums and set up a music player in the profile. Users can also send friend requests via e-mail to other users. When a person receives a friend request, he or she may accept or decline it, or block the user altogether. If the user accepts another user as a friend, the two will be connected directly or in the 1st degree. The user will then appear on the person's friend list and vice-versa.

Some users opt to make their profiles available for everyone on hi5 to view. Other users exercise the option to make their profile viewable only to those people who are in their network. The network of friends consists of a user's direct friends (1st degree), the friends of those direct friends (2nd degree) and the friends of the friends of direct friends (3rd degree).^[5]

Market share

Although hi5's advertising claims it to be the third largest social network in the world, there is no independent evidence to back up this claim.

Although created and headquartered in the United States, it is more popular in other countries, being ranked 16th in the world only among people who have the Alexa toolbar installed on their browser.http://www.alexa.com/site/ds/top_sites?ts_mode=global&lang=none but only 83rd in the US http://www.alexa.com/site/ds/top_sites?cc=US&ts_mode=country&lang=none.

See also

• List of social networking websites

References

External links

• hi5 - Official Website

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