Bangalore: Facebook, with more than a billion users, is the largest online social network in the world that means it connects more people than any of its competitors out there.

But there are some apps where you can create personal profiles, build networks of friends, share photos, music, and videos, pretty much like Facebook, but more feasible when it comes to instant conversations.

The apps like Whatsapp, Kik, LINE, WeChat have blossomed around the world market, and Whatsapp is leading when it comes to number of downloads. These apps combine elements of text messaging and social networking, and provide a quick-fire way for Smartphone users to trade everything from brief texts to pictures to video clips - bypassing both the SMS plans offered by wireless carriers and established social networks originally designed as websites.

"True interactions are conversational in nature," says Rich Miner, a partner at Google Ventures who invested in San Francisco-based MessageMe, a new entrant in the messaging market, reports Reuters. "More people text and make phone calls than get on to social networks. If one company dominates the replacement of that traffic, then by definition that's very big."

Waterloo, Ontario-based Kik has racked up 40 million users since launching in 2010. MessageMe claimed 1 million downloads in its first week.

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