Online social networking websites saw their ranks  swell and values soar this year as everyone from moody teenagers and mellow music lovers to mate-seeking seniors joined online communities.

Google's freshly released "Zeitgeist 2007" reveals that seven out of the 10 hottest topics which triggered Internet queries during the year involved social networking.

A Top Ten list compiled by the world's most-used search engine includes British website Badoo, Spanish-language Hi5, and US-based Facebook.

Video-sharing websites YouTube and Dailymotion are on the list, along with the Club Penguin online role playing game where children pretending to be the flightless birds "waddle about and play" together.

Virtual world Second Life, where people represented by animated proxies interact in digitized fantasy settings, is the final social networking property in the Zeitgeist Top Ten.

The world has only seen "the tip of the iceberg" when it comes to online social networking, says MySpace vice president of business development Amit Kapur.

"It is a natural step in the evolution of the Web," Kapur said.

"The Web is getting more personal. I think you are going to see much more of that happen on every website across the Web."

MySpace aspires to become people's homes on the Internet, with profile pages serving as online addresses as well as springboards to online music, video, news and other contents conducive to their tastes and interests.

Industry statistics show Facebook membership more than doubled in the past year to about 55 million, while MySpace grew 30 percent to top 110 million.

One in every four US residents uses MySpace, while in Britain it is as common to have a profile page on the website as it is to own a dog.