We thinks of social networks and social media as ubiquitous, and maybe even amorphous.   Yet there are discernible patterns in both the usage of social networks and the approaches they take to connect people which tell a story.   For example:

• Plaxo is the network with the most users over the age of 65, which came as some surpise
• Facebook is more popular with women
• Digg and Reddit tend to be more popular with men
• LinkedIn is perhaps the ‘wealthiest’ social network in terms of it’s membership
• Plurk outranks LinkedIn when it comes to well-educated users who have graduate degrees, which was also a surprise

The infographic below (from Ignite Social Media) tells the story.   You’ll find the details of how they arrived at these conlusions here.