When it comes to stereotypes about Brazilians - that they are a fun-loving people who love to dance samba, wear tiny bathing suits, and raise their pro soccer players to the levels of demi-gods - only one, the idea that they hold human connection in high esteem, seems to be born out by concrete data. Brazilians are among the savviest social networkers in the world, by almost all engagement measures. Nearly 80 percent of Internet users in Brazil (a group itself expected to grow by almost 50 percent over the next three years) are engaged in social networking - a global high. And these users are highly active, logging an average of 6.3 hours on social networks and 1,220 page views per month per Internet user - a rate second only to Russia, and almost double the worldwide average of 3.7 hours. It is precisely this broad, highly engaged audience that makes Brazil the hotly contested ground it is today, with the dominant social networking Web site, Google's Orkut, facing stiff competition from Facebook, the leading aggregate Web site worldwide.