Brazilian Internet Phenomenon

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The Brazilian Internet Phenomenon is a term used to describe the massive adoption by Brazilians of an Internet service exceeding the number of members of the original nationality of the service. A possible reason for this is shown on a recently an IBOPE/NetRatings study that revealed that they overtook the U.S. in terms of time surfing on the internet and, today, are the people who spend the most time on the internet.

This phenomenon was clearly observed in 2003 on Fotolog.net (now Fotolog.com), when the numbers of Brazilians exceeded the number of users of all the other countries combined. The potential of the market of digital cameras was noticed as a result of this Fotolog.net mania. Recently, such phenomenon happened with extreme rapidity in Google's social networking site Orkut. However, since it is common to find a person with multiple social network profiles, blogs and flogs or even fake registrations in these, statistics about which country has the most users may not always be reliable. On the other hand, a rumor (denied by Google) spread in Brazil claimed that Orkut users declaring themselves as being from this country could receive inferior services, leading many to register themselves as inhabitants of other countries. Thus, the percentage of Brazilians on these websites might be even higher.

Brazilians also took over several online games, such as Tibia. This German game started in 1997 and found its overall player growth to increase exponentially since early 2003.^{[citation needed]} But it also found its Brazilian players to grow extremely quickly independently.^{[citation needed]}

Brazil is also home to the highest number of MSN Messenger users, a instant messaging program that is very popular among teenagers.^[1] They have always adopted in great numbers such services as ICQ, IRC (BRASnet being one of the biggest IRC networks in the world), Gmail, Skype, Blogspot (recently Blogger released a service located in Brazil), and some defunct services like The Palace, Gooey and PowWow (chat program).

This probably explains why MSN Brasil and Yahoo! Brasil are relatively unpopular, and may have contributed to AOL's failure in the Brazilian market, while UOL ranks highly in Alexa (traffic rankings website).