More than 4.66 billion people worldwide are active Internet users. That’s almost 60% of the world’s population. Pretty amazing numbers, right? On the Web, people meet, communicate, study, work and simply have fun. Indeed it’s quite hard to imagine someone who has never used the Internet at all, especially in our highly-connected developed countries.
But which online platforms and services are the most popular at the moment? We can distinguish three categories — social networks, dating sites, and anonymous video chat sites, which have been experiencing a real renaissance lately. It’s these three areas we’d like to investigate further.
Social networks
Social networks are convenient platforms for communicating with friends, but not just that. You can follow the latest world news, share moments from your life and just have a good time.
Among social networks, there are several undisputed leaders who have held their positions firmly for many years now. Let’s examine them further.
Facebook is by far the biggest social network in the world. According to current data, Facebook has over 1.84 billion daily active users in 2021. This is 12% more than a year ago. The increase in the number of users was largely facilitated by the coronavirus pandemic and quarantine restrictions. Millions of people were literally stuck staring at four walls , so they began to look for entertainment on the Web.
Instagram is one of the top ten most popular social networks in the United States. This social network has about a billion visits per month, and the total number of Instagram users is estimated at 1.2 billion. This is less than Facebook, but the figure is still impressive. In the US, more than 63% of registered users visit Instagram every day. However, according to Ghost Data, there are about 95 million bot accounts on the social network, which is a lot.
Twitter has been going through hard times in recent years, but the site is still very popular. After it launched, Instagram lured away a significant part of Twitter’s audience, but it still has about 1.3 billion user accounts. Every day, users post over 500 million tweets, and the number of active users per month is about 330 million.
Snapchat
Snapchat has an active audience of over 280 million in 2021. The largest base of users is in North and Central America — over 100 million people. In Europe, it’s about 71 million, and in the rest of the world around 77 million. Interestingly, Snapchat was valued at $0.8 billion in 2013, and at $90.9 billion in 2021.
Dating apps and sites
The first dating sites began to appear in the mid-nineties, and over time, they only became more popular. In the 2000s, there was a real surge in the popularity of such platforms, especially with the advent of mobile apps that have made dating even more convenient.
Tinder
Tinder is a location-based site and dating app. Thanks to Tinder, wherever you are, you can look for interesting people nearby — for friendship, relationships or for sex without unnecessary strings. The platform is really user-friendly and very popular.
Bumble
Bumble and Tinder are broadly similar platforms, but the former has a unique twist. Here, the first move is made by girls — guys can’t message them first. The developers of the site say this avoids pressure on women from male users and gives them more freedom in choosing a potential partner. Some users were ambivalent about this restriction, but the user base for Bumble has grown quite huge regardless.
Zoosk
Zoosk is a popular dating app with many filters to find a potential partner. Here you can find new friends, chat, view user photos and much more. The developers claim that Zoosk cares about security and privacy, actively fights bots and uses an exclusive photo verification tool. Nevertheless, comments from users report that there are a lot of fakes and bots here. Consider this, so bear that in mind.
OkCupid
OkCupid is a very popular dating platform, which in some ways is more like a social network. Here users share their stories, talk about themselves, show the world their photos and get maximum freedom of self-expression. An excellent choice for those who want to learn as much as possible about a person before taking their relationship to the next level.
Match.com
Match.com is one of the first dating sites in history. The site is positioned as a platform for serious dating and is generally quite popular. But recently, Match.com’s ratings have not been the highest, as most of the features available are paid and unreasonably expensive, especially when compared with the alternatives.
Omegle video chat and its alternatives
Omegle became the first chat roulette in history when it launched back in 2009. Since then, the site has not been especially modernized. Filters for finding chat partners are still not available, there are no mobile applications, and moderation leaves much to be desired. Many alternatives to Omegle bypassed it on all counts a long time ago.
Chatroulette
Chatroulette is the closest Omegle alternative in spirit. It was here that the video chat function was first implemented, not just text chat. But poor moderation, an abundance of problem users and a lack of useful features quickly made Chatroulette unpopular, so a rapid rise in popularity was followed by an equally rapid drop.
OmeTV
Despite its visual simplicity, OmeTV is a good clone of Omegle with several useful features. First of all, there are gender and geographic filters, and even more interesting is the automatic message translation function. Thanks to that, you can communicate with foreign users much more conveniently, and not have to rely on third-party translators.
Shagle
Shagle is a good alternative to Omegle, with a gender filter and search for chat partners by location in more than 70 countries. This is not nearly as many as some of the other chat sites, but still sufficient for most users.
OmegleTV
OmegleTV is a video chat site on which you’ll definitely not come across fakes, bots and advertising accounts. Online video chat with girls increases the chances of a promising match and makes it a great time saver. The site is comfortable, minimalist and easy to use.
Chathub
Chathub isn’t the most feature-rich alternative to Omegle, but it does offer gender and language filters. For many, this is more than enough. Also, note that Chathub has no mobile apps, but the web version works quite well on smartphones and tablets.
Emeraldchat
A distinctive feature of Emeraldchat is the karma rating of each user. It determines your status on the site, and how often and to which users the system will connect you. The feature is truly unique and makes Emeraldchat worth your attention.
Make the Internet work for you
The Internet has become an integral part of all our lives, and every year its capabilities are only expanding. The only questions are what do you need it for, and is it fulfilling those needs?
We hope our article will help you choose the optimal platform for your goals, be it a social network, a dating site or anonymous video chat. We wish you only pleasant acquaintances on the Internet and positive emotions every day!
