It’s been just four short years since a college student named Mark Zuckerberg launched a new social network with a very specific target demographic: American Ivy League college students. Since then, the Facebook phenomenon has exceeded everyone’s expectations. After opening up accessibility to anyone interested in signing up late last year, growth in the U.S. for the social network has been off the charts, with the site currently receiving Sezen says that Turkish developers have found ways to get around any language barriers by creating add-on Facebook applications that make the site more culturally relevant.

“One good example is Raki Sofrasi,” Sezen said. “Raki is the traditional alcoholic beverage of Turkey, which people drink socially at dinnertime with meze. After a certain hour, when people get drunk, tables in a Raki restaurant compete in sending mezes to other tables as a gesture of friendship. This application [acts] virtually as if you are together with all your friends drinking Raki and sending mezes to each other with special notes.”

While most users in the U.S. use Facebook for meeting new people, Turks use it for keeping up with the people they already know. “My parents don’t speak English at all but my brother and I created a joint profile for them. Now they are in contact with all our friends and relatives,” Sezen says.

Internet expert Shel Israel wrote a similar observation about British and Canadian Facebook users on UK Facebook user Brad Haynes of London thinks Facebook’s leadership in his country is due to a “lack of a decent alternative to Facebook and a disproportionately high number of vocal middle-class users.”

Nathan Livings, a Facebook user in Leicester agrees that part of the appeal is that “middle class” factor: “I think Facebook is the network of choice because it’s the one that’s compatible with the majority of my friends. They say that in the UK Facebook appeals more to middle-class people, especially if they have been to University, whereas MySpace seems to be more popular with working class people, or people who are trying to promote themselves in their artistic endeavors.”

Both Haynes and Livings say they have tried British-made social networks but have opted out. “I am a member of Wayn.com but only 2 or 3 of my friends are on it, so I never use it,” says Livings.

Many users I spoke to describe the site as having an “American feel” in the way networks are grouped (for instance by school or workplace) and in the means of communications. Some consider “poking” another user as rather strange, while others wonder why the site asks you to share how you know someone.

Alfredo de Hoces, a Spanish engineer living in Dublin put it this way: “Even though it’s universally used, you can really tell it’s an American product. I think in the U.S., as far as I understand, relationships are a little more superficial and exhibitionist. In a savagely consumer-driven society, you have to have more ‘friends’ or receive more ‘gifts’ than others. Most of the fun offered by Facebook seems frivolous and a waste of time to me.”

But most people I talked to weren’t put off by these things. As Nathan Livings puts it, “the whole Internet has an American feel. Just do a Google search and you’ll see what I mean.”

Chilean Facebook user Jose Ignacio Stark told me that he prefers Facebook over more localized options “because it doesn’t suck visually and operationally like MySpace, Hi5 or Orkut.” All of those sites have translated versions of their services, and have a lead over Facebook in South America.

Some international users point to the privacy afforded by a Facebook profile as opposed to other sites. Fabeha Khan, a Facebook user in Singapore, says that she likes the fact that she can limit who can see her profile. She also says that the “American feel” of the site is more appealing than an Asia-specific social network. Like many