Social networking is what Indians spend most time on while online these days. According to the latest figures released by marketing research company ComScore, 84 percent of India's Internet audience visit social networking sites. This makes India the world's seventh largest market for social networking after U.S., China, Germany, Russian Federation, Brazil and the U.K.

Will Hodgman, executive vice president of Asia-Pacific for ComScore, said in the report:"Though Facebook has tripled its audience in the past year to pace the growth for the category; several other social networking sites have posted their own sizeable gains.” The social networking juggernaut last year had intensified efforts to expand its presence in India, adding Hindi and five other Indian dialects to its language support in a bid to close the gap against Orkut, which had dominated the local social networking scene.

Here are the 5 most frequented social networking websites in the country.

1. Facebook

This social networking service was introduced with the purpose of linking friends in Harvard University in 2004. Thereafter, the company expanded to other universities and colleges.

Eventually, they invited corporate communities. The world's top social networking website has finally conquered India, racing past Orkut with an impressive 179 per cent growth since July 2009. Facebook registered 20.87 million unique visitors from India in July 2010, which is over 50 per cent of India's total Internet audience.

2. Orkut

After remaining the most popular social networking website in India for long, Orkut was finally pushed to the number two position. Though it is still popular in the Tier 2 and Tier 3 cities in India, chances are this Google property might slide down even further in India.

3. LinkedIn

Indians discovered the benefits of professional social networking and this led to a rise in LinkedIn’s figures for India.  Top 2 uses of this site are Hiring and Professional Networking.

4. Twitter.com

With Indian celebrities are embracing the microblogging site like never before, more and more Indians are actively tweeting. Indian topics regularly feature amongst the top trends on Twitter. It has the highest rate of growth among the top five social networking sites.

5. Ibibo

An Indian social site that focuses on Social Gaming and E-Commerce platforms, Ibibo is gaining popularity. One can play games with friends, followers and celebrities.

Interesting Facts about the Social Networking scene in India:

• 60% of the social networking traffic come from Non Metro-Cities but the highest traffic generating city still remains to be a Metro i.e. Mumbai
•  The highest number of active users are from the 15-24 age group but LinkedInhas a different age group of active users i.e. 25-34 age-group.
• Facebook and Orkut, together cater to about 90 per cent of the users in the social media space.
• Facebookis the only social network in India that has witnessed a tremendous growth, almost doubling its users in the last 6 months.
• The maximum users come from the ‘less than 2 lakhs p.a.’ income category. This is because social networks are primarily driven by the youth.
• More than 45% of the users on Social Networks return during the day. Facebook tops the list with users re-visiting more than 3 times during a day.
• Majority of the time spent by the Indian audience on Facebook is on Interactive Games/Applications and then on viewing Photos.