Friendster
Encyclopedia
Friendster is a social gaming site that is based in Malaysia, KL. The company now operates mainly from the three Asian countries namely in the Philippines, Malaysia and Singapore.

It was previously known as a social networking website
Website
A website, also written as Web site, web site, or simply site, is a collection of related web pages containing images, videos or other digital assets. A website is hosted on at least one web server, accessible via a network such as the Internet or a private local area network through an Internet...

  Before the site was redesigned, the service allowed users to contact other members, maintain those contacts, and share online content and media with those contacts. The website was also used for dating and discovering new events, bands, and hobbies. Users could share videos, photos, messages and comments with other members via their profile and their network. It was considered one of the original and even the "grandaddy" of social networks. The service became popular in Southeast Asia
Southeast Asia
Southeast Asia, South-East Asia, South East Asia or Southeastern Asia is a subregion of Asia, consisting of the countries that are geographically south of China, east of India, west of New Guinea and north of Australia. The region lies on the intersection of geological plates, with heavy seismic...

 and is a major site in that region of the world.

Since the relaunch of Friendster as a social gaming platform in June 2011, the number of registered users has reached over 115 million.

Over 90% of Friendster's traffic came from Asia
Asia
Asia is the world's largest and most populous continent, located primarily in the eastern and northern hemispheres. It covers 8.7% of the Earth's total surface area and with approximately 3.879 billion people, it hosts 60% of the world's current human population...

. In Asia, as of 2008, Friendster had more monthly unique visitors than any other social network. The top 10 countries accessing Friendster, according to Alexa
Alexa Internet
Alexa Internet, Inc. is a California-based subsidiary company of Amazon.com that is known for its toolbar and Web site. Once installed, the toolbar collects data on browsing behavior which is transmitted to the Web site where it is stored and analyzed and is the basis for the company's Web traffic...

, as of May 7, 2009 are the Philippines
Philippines
The Philippines , officially known as the Republic of the Philippines , is a country in Southeast Asia in the western Pacific Ocean. To its north across the Luzon Strait lies Taiwan. West across the South China Sea sits Vietnam...

, Indonesia
Indonesia
Indonesia , officially the Republic of Indonesia , is a country in Southeast Asia and Oceania. Indonesia is an archipelago comprising approximately 13,000 islands. It has 33 provinces with over 238 million people, and is the world's fourth most populous country. Indonesia is a republic, with an...

, Malaysia, Singapore
Singapore
Singapore , officially the Republic of Singapore, is a Southeast Asian city-state off the southern tip of the Malay Peninsula, north of the equator. An island country made up of 63 islands, it is separated from Malaysia by the Straits of Johor to its north and from Indonesia's Riau Islands by the...

, Thailand
Thailand
Thailand , officially the Kingdom of Thailand , formerly known as Siam , is a country located at the centre of the Indochina peninsula and Southeast Asia. It is bordered to the north by Burma and Laos, to the east by Laos and Cambodia, to the south by the Gulf of Thailand and Malaysia, and to the...

, Pakistan
Pakistan
Pakistan , officially the Islamic Republic of Pakistan is a sovereign state in South Asia. It has a coastline along the Arabian Sea and the Gulf of Oman in the south and is bordered by Afghanistan and Iran in the west, India in the east and China in the far northeast. In the north, Tajikistan...

, United Arab Emirates
United Arab Emirates
The United Arab Emirates, abbreviated as the UAE, or shortened to "the Emirates", is a state situated in the southeast of the Arabian Peninsula in Western Asia on the Persian Gulf, bordering Oman, and Saudi Arabia, and sharing sea borders with Iraq, Kuwait, Bahrain, Qatar, and Iran.The UAE is a...

, Sudan
Sudan
Sudan , officially the Republic of the Sudan , is a country in North Africa, sometimes considered part of the Middle East politically. It is bordered by Egypt to the north, the Red Sea to the northeast, Eritrea and Ethiopia to the east, South Sudan to the south, the Central African Republic to the...

, South Korea
South Korea
The Republic of Korea , , is a sovereign state in East Asia, located on the southern portion of the Korean Peninsula. It is neighbored by the People's Republic of China to the west, Japan to the east, North Korea to the north, and the East China Sea and Republic of China to the south...

, Bangladesh
Bangladesh
Bangladesh , officially the People's Republic of Bangladesh is a sovereign state located in South Asia. It is bordered by India on all sides except for a small border with Burma to the far southeast and by the Bay of Bengal to the south...

 and India
India
India , officially the Republic of India , is a country in South Asia. It is the seventh-largest country by geographical area, the second-most populous country with over 1.2 billion people, and the most populous democracy in the world...

.

History

Friendster was founded by computer programmer Jonathan Abrams and Peter Chin in 2002 in Morgan Hill
Morgan Hill, California
Morgan Hill is a city located in the southern part of Santa Clara County, California, United States. Founded on November 10, 1906, the city was named after Hiram Morgan Hill, a San Franciscan who built a country retreat home there in 1884...

, California
California
California is a state located on the West Coast of the United States. It is by far the most populous U.S. state, and the third-largest by land area...

 before the creation, launch and adoption of MySpace
MySpace
Myspace is a social networking service owned by Specific Media LLC and pop star Justin Timberlake. Myspace launched in August 2003 and is headquartered in Beverly Hills, California. In August 2011, Myspace had 33.1 million unique U.S. visitors....

 (2003), Facebook
Facebook
Facebook is a social networking service and website launched in February 2004, operated and privately owned by Facebook, Inc. , Facebook has more than 800 million active users. Users must register before using the site, after which they may create a personal profile, add other users as...

 (2004), and others. The name Friendster is a portmanteau of "friend" and Napster
Napster
Napster is an online music store and a Best Buy company. It was originally founded as a pioneering peer-to-peer file sharing Internet service that emphasized sharing audio files that were typically digitally encoded music as MP3 format files...

. Napster at the time was a controversial peer-to-peer file sharing Internet service that was launched in 1999 (By 2000, "Napster" was practically a household word due to several high-profile lawsuits filed against it that year). The old Friendster site was founded in Mountain View, California by Jonathan Abrams in 2002 and was privately owned. Friendster is based on the Circle of Friends (social network
Social network
A social network is a social structure made up of individuals called "nodes", which are tied by one or more specific types of interdependency, such as friendship, kinship, common interest, financial exchange, dislike, sexual relationships, or relationships of beliefs, knowledge or prestige.Social...

) technique for networking individuals in virtual communities and demonstrates the small world phenomenon. Friendster was considered the top online social network service until around April 2004
April 2004
2004 : January - February - March - April - May - June - July - August - September - October - November - December-Events:2004 : January - February - March - April - May - June - July - August - September - October - November - December-Events:...

 when it was overtaken by MySpace
MySpace
Myspace is a social networking service owned by Specific Media LLC and pop star Justin Timberlake. Myspace launched in August 2003 and is headquartered in Beverly Hills, California. In August 2011, Myspace had 33.1 million unique U.S. visitors....

 in terms of page views, according to Nielsen//NetRatings.

Friendster.com went live in 2002 and was quickly adopted by three million users within the first few months. Publications including Time, Esquire, Vanity Fair, Entertainment Weekly, US Weekly and Spin wrote about Friendster's success and the founder appeared on magazine covers and late-night talk shows. Friendster's rapid success inspired a generation of niche social networking websites including Dogster
Dogster
Dogster is a dog-themed social networking and forums-based website. Its sister site is Catster, a cat-oriented website with a similar format.Users of the site create a pet page which is a customizable web page for which they can give treats or purchase virtual items using what are called zealies...

 and Elfster
Elfster
Elfster is a social networking website for wishlists and gift-giving, and a free online organizer for "secret santa" style gift exchanges. Elfster can be used to create wishlists and organize online gift exchanges. Users can find friends in Elfster, and follow their wishlists...

.

Friendster had also received competition from all-in-one sites such as Windows Live Spaces
Windows Live Spaces
Windows Live Spaces was Microsoft's blogging and social networking platform. The site was originally released in early 2004 as MSN Spaces to compete with other social networking sites, and re-launched in 2006 as a part of a shifting of community services away from the MSN brand...

, Yahoo! 360, and Facebook
Facebook
Facebook is a social networking service and website launched in February 2004, operated and privately owned by Facebook, Inc. , Facebook has more than 800 million active users. Users must register before using the site, after which they may create a personal profile, add other users as...

.Offlate newer websites like Hi5 and iShoals are posing new competition for friendster. Google
Google
Google Inc. is an American multinational public corporation invested in Internet search, cloud computing, and advertising technologies. Google hosts and develops a number of Internet-based services and products, and generates profit primarily from advertising through its AdWords program...

 offered $30,000,000 to buy out Friendster in 2003, but they were turned down. Friendster was then funded by Kleiner, Perkins, Caufield & Byers
Kleiner, Perkins, Caufield & Byers
Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers ' is a world-leading venture capital firm located on Sand Hill Road in Menlo Park in Silicon Valley. The Wall Street Journal has called it one of the "largest and most established" venture capital firms in the world...

 and Benchmark Capital in October 2003
October 2003
October 2003: January – February – March – April – May – June – July – August – September – October – November – December-Events:-October 1, 2003:...

 with a reported valuation of $53 million. Friendster's decision to stay private instead of selling to Google in 2003 is considered one of the biggest blunders of Silicon Valley
Silicon Valley
Silicon Valley is a term which refers to the southern part of the San Francisco Bay Area in Northern California in the United States. The region is home to many of the world's largest technology corporations...

, the Associated Press
Associated Press
The Associated Press is an American news agency. The AP is a cooperative owned by its contributing newspapers, radio and television stations in the United States, which both contribute stories to the AP and use material written by its staff journalists...

 claims. In April 2004
April 2004
2004 : January - February - March - April - May - June - July - August - September - October - November - December-Events:2004 : January - February - March - April - May - June - July - August - September - October - November - December-Events:...

, John Abrams was removed as CEO
Chief executive officer
A chief executive officer , managing director , Executive Director for non-profit organizations, or chief executive is the highest-ranking corporate officer or administrator in charge of total management of an organization...

 and Tim Koogle took over as interim CEO. Koogle previously served as President and CEO at Yahoo!. Koogle was later replaced by Scott Sassa in June 2004
June 2004
June 2004: January – February – March – April – May – June – July – August – September – October – November – December-Events:...

. Sassa left in May 2005 and was replaced by Taek Kwon. Taek Kwon was then succeeded by Kent Lindstrom, following a recapitalization by Kleiner and Benchmark that valued Friendster at less than one-twentieth its 2003 valuation.

As of 2008 Friendster had a membership base of more than 115 million registered users and continued to grow in Asia. According to Alexa, the site has suffered an exponential decline in traffic in America since 2009. From a peak 40 ranking it reached 800 in November 2010. Most people have since attributed this decline to the rise of Facebook
Facebook
Facebook is a social networking service and website launched in February 2004, operated and privately owned by Facebook, Inc. , Facebook has more than 800 million active users. Users must register before using the site, after which they may create a personal profile, add other users as...

, a rival social networking site.
In August 2008, Friendster hired ex-Google executive Richard Kimber as the CEO. Kimber is focusing on Friendster's expansion in Asia.

On December 9, 2009, it was announced that Friendster was acquired for $26.4 million US by MOL Global, one of Asia's biggest Internet companies. MOL Global is funded by one of Malaysia's successful businessmen, Tan Sri Vincent Tan, Chairman and Chief Executive of Berjaya Corporation Bertha.

In June 2011, the company repositioned itself into a social gaming site and discontinued user social network accounts. But Friendster accounts will not be deleted and users can still log in using their existing e-mail login and password. They also stated that contact list (or friendlist) will be preserved along with user's basic information. Friendster said that in the new and improved website, the focus will be on pure "entertainment and fun", and aims not to compete with, but rather to complement Facebook.

Financial history

The company was originally founded in 2002 with a $12 million investment by Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers, Benchmark Capital
Benchmark Capital
Benchmark Capital is a venture capital firm responsible for the early stage funding of some very successful startups. In 1997, the firm invested $6.7 million in eBay, which became worth more than $5 billion by the spring of 1999. Other high-profile investments include Ariba, Juniper Networks, Red...

, and private investors.

In 2003, Friendster management received a $30 million buyout offer from Google
Google
Google Inc. is an American multinational public corporation invested in Internet search, cloud computing, and advertising technologies. Google hosts and develops a number of Internet-based services and products, and generates profit primarily from advertising through its AdWords program...

, which they declined.

Friendster received another $3 million in funding in February 2006 from Klein-er Perkins Caufield & Byers and Benchmark Capital. In August 2006, Friendster also received $10 million in funding in a round led by DAG Ventures
DAG Ventures
DAG Ventures is an American venture capital firm based in Palo Alto, California. It is known as a "coattail" fund for co-investing in later-stage private financing rounds alongside more prominent top-tier venture funds such as Kleiner Perkins, Sequoia Capital, Benchmark Capital, and Accel Venture...

, and Friendster announced in August 2008 that it had raised an additional $20 million in funding in a round led by IDG Ventures
IDG Ventures
IDG Ventures is a global family of venture funds with approximately $6.8 billion under management. All of the funds were originally sole-source-funded by International Data Group.The first fund was created by IDG in 1996 and was located in San Francisco...

. Prior to its acquisition by MOL Global, Friendster was backed by Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers, Benchmark Capital
Benchmark Capital
Benchmark Capital is a venture capital firm responsible for the early stage funding of some very successful startups. In 1997, the firm invested $6.7 million in eBay, which became worth more than $5 billion by the spring of 1999. Other high-profile investments include Ariba, Juniper Networks, Red...

, DAG Ventures
DAG Ventures
DAG Ventures is an American venture capital firm based in Palo Alto, California. It is known as a "coattail" fund for co-investing in later-stage private financing rounds alongside more prominent top-tier venture funds such as Kleiner Perkins, Sequoia Capital, Benchmark Capital, and Accel Venture...

, IDG Ventures, and individual investors.

Awards and recognitions

  • In July 2006, Friendster was awarded Key Social Networking Technology Patent.
  • In 2007, Friendster was selected by AlwaysOn Media as Top 100 Private Company Award Winner.
  • In April 2008, Friendster became a Webware
    Webware
    Webware is the same as a Web Application, Web-app, Rich Internet Application or Cloudware. Different terms but same meaning.Webware is the term given to describe Web-based software - software that runs either on the Web and is not installed onto a computer's hard drive or is installed and runs on a...

     100 winner.
  • In 2009, the site was the subject of a satirical portrayal by The Onion News Network of the site's discovery as an archaeological relic, untouched since 2005.
  • In May 2010, Friendster was recognized as one of the "Hottest Silicon Valley
    Silicon Valley
    Silicon Valley is a term which refers to the southern part of the San Francisco Bay Area in Northern California in the United States. The region is home to many of the world's largest technology corporations...

     Companies" by Lead411.

Services

In November 2009, Friendster announced a global partnership with MOL AccessPortal Berhad (MOL), a leading payments provider leveraging a network of over 600,000 physical and virtual payment channels worldwide, to power the Friendster Wallet and a payments platform enabling micro-spending for over 115 million registered users on Friendster. The Friendster Wallet was designed to support a variety of payment methods including pre-paid cards, mobile payments, online payments and credit card payments.

Friendster also partners in with content partners such as game developers and publishers which provides monetization solutions on the Friendster platform leveraging on MOL's payment channels and Friendster's large userbase.

Sub-brands

Friendster iCafe - Cybercafe management system integrating cybercafe's computers, customers, accountings and billing needs into one thus enabling cybercafe owner to manage the cybercafes with convenience.

Friendster hotspots - Providers retail outlets with a free Wifi infrastructure for their consumers funded by advertising. It offers customers free high speed internet connection at popular retail outlets and gives advertisers wide exposure to affluent, well-educated consumers.

Languages

Available languages include Filipino
Filipino language
This move has drawn much criticism from other regional groups.In 1987, a new constitution introduced many provisions for the language.Article XIV, Section 6, omits any mention of Tagalog as the basis for Filipino, and states that:...

, Thai
Thai language
Thai , also known as Central Thai and Siamese, is the national and official language of Thailand and the native language of the Thai people, Thailand's dominant ethnic group. Thai is a member of the Tai group of the Tai–Kadai language family. Historical linguists have been unable to definitively...

, Malay
Malay language
Malay is a major language of the Austronesian family. It is the official language of Malaysia , Indonesia , Brunei and Singapore...

, Vietnamese
Vietnamese language
Vietnamese is the national and official language of Vietnam. It is the mother tongue of 86% of Vietnam's population, and of about three million overseas Vietnamese. It is also spoken as a second language by many ethnic minorities of Vietnam...

, Indonesian
Indonesian language
Indonesian is the official language of Indonesia. Indonesian is a normative form of the Riau Islands dialect of Malay, an Austronesian language which has been used as a lingua franca in the Indonesian archipelago for centuries....

, Chinese
Chinese language
The Chinese language is a language or language family consisting of varieties which are mutually intelligible to varying degrees. Originally the indigenous languages spoken by the Han Chinese in China, it forms one of the branches of Sino-Tibetan family of languages...

 (both Traditional and Simplified), Japanese
Japanese language
is a language spoken by over 130 million people in Japan and in Japanese emigrant communities. It is a member of the Japonic language family, which has a number of proposed relationships with other languages, none of which has gained wide acceptance among historical linguists .Japanese is an...

, Korean
Korean language
Korean is the official language of the country Korea, in both South and North. It is also one of the two official languages in the Yanbian Korean Autonomous Prefecture in People's Republic of China. There are about 78 million Korean speakers worldwide. In the 15th century, a national writing...

, and Spanish
Spanish language
Spanish , also known as Castilian , is a Romance language in the Ibero-Romance group that evolved from several languages and dialects in central-northern Iberia around the 9th century and gradually spread with the expansion of the Kingdom of Castile into central and southern Iberia during the...

. Until September 2007, Friendster was only available in English. 10 new languages were added from 2007 up to January 2009, with Filipino being the newest language to be included. Users can also enter content on Friendster in any language.

Friendster launched all language
Language
Language may refer either to the specifically human capacity for acquiring and using complex systems of communication, or to a specific instance of such a system of complex communication...

 support on a single domain - www.friendster.com. Friendster is the first global online social network to support Asian languages and others on a single domain so that users from around the world can talk to each other.

Development

Friendster has been an open site since August 2006 when it first began allowing widgets and content to be embedded in user profile pages through its developer program. Roughly 39 percent of Friendster's users have widgets on their profile.

Friendster gives software developer
Software developer
A software developer is a person concerned with facets of the software development process. Their work includes researching, designing, developing, and testing software. A software developer may take part in design, computer programming, or software project management...

s access to APIs that utilize content and data within the Friendster network to build and deploy customizable applications on and off Friendster. Friendster's Developer Program is an open, non-proprietary
Proprietary software
Proprietary software is computer software licensed under exclusive legal right of the copyright holder. The licensee is given the right to use the software under certain conditions, while restricted from other uses, such as modification, further distribution, or reverse engineering.Complementary...

 platform with an open revenue model.

Friendster was the first social network to support both the OpenSocial
OpenSocial
OpenSocial is a set of common application programming interfaces for web-based social network applications, developed by Google along with MySpace and a number of other social networks.It was released November 1, 2007....

and the Facebook Platform.

In December 2009, Friendster relaunched its website with a new interface.

Patents

Friendster holds some fundamental online social networking patents:
In August 2010, Facebook confirmed that it had acquired 18 patents from Friendster.

Site transformation

In June 2011, Friendster shifted from social networking site to a social entertainment site which focus on gaming and entertainment. The accounts are unchanged and still existing. However, all the photos, messages, comments, testimonials, shoutouts, blogs, forums and groups that the users may have had in the past may no longer be part of their Friendster account. An exporting tool is provided to back up the information of the user account. This tool has an ability to export photos to Flickr and Multiply.

Deadline given to users to export their photos was extended to 27 June 2011. Photos which are not exported by the deadline have been removed and not retrievable. This has enraged many users who posted hate messages on the official support community http://getsatisfaction.com/friendster.

In 2 months after the new Friendster has relaunched, Friendster has attracted more than half a million new users and now includes over 40 premium games.
Some of the result of the Frienster relaunch:
  • Daily and Monthly Active Users have increased by 50 percent.
  • More than 90 percent of new users came from Asia.
  • There are 40 premium games and hundreds of free-games-and-applications with nearly half of the new users play between 1 to 5 games in a month. 30 percent of them spend more than 45 minutes a day. 10 percent of them have bought virtual credits in Friendster.

External links

The source of this article is wikipedia, the free encyclopedia.  The text of this article is licensed under the GFDL.
 
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