Social networking outside the U.S. gets a Hi5

In December I was told about a social networking site I was unfamiliar with called Hi5. Hi5, it turns out, isn't familiar to most people in the United States because we're using sites like MySpace and Facebook. What I discovered however is that Hi5 is huge outside the U.S. The pastor who introduced me to Hi5 learned about it from some missionaries in El Salvador. Over the weekend TechCruch posted that Hi5 may be second only to MySpace in social networking usage.

The application here for American churches or ministries is that if you're working with a church plant or mission outside the U.S. and want to create a social networking profile to connect with that people in that country then MySpace will likely not be the best place for you to go. If anything, this reinforces the fact that the opportunities for global ministry networking via the web are plentiful. It also reminds me that just because something can be a useful tool in the U.S. doesn't mean it's the best solution in the rest of the world.