Friendster - Explore Your Friends
Friendster is a social networking website which allows its users to contact with others
, share content such as photos, videos.The name Friendster comes from combination of "Friend" and "Napster".The aim of this website is to allow people to communicate from anywhere.
Friendster became mostly famous in Asia and 90 % of its registered users are from here.
Friendster was founded by Jonathan Abrams who is a computer programmer in 2002 and had its headquarters based in Sydney, Australia.
This website went live on March, 2003 and in first three months more than 3 million users have registered.
The company was funded financially by Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers, Benchmark Capital, DAG Ventures and IDG Ventures.
The regional languages in which this website is available are: Indonesian, Chienese, Malay, Japanese, Korean. Frienster was one of first social networking platform and stood on top until 2004, when MySpace took on the place.
Development:
The Friendster website went live on March, 2003.In the first 3 months of its launch, Friendster received huge success as more than 3 million users have registered with it.
Friendster receives funding from private sources.It was offered a buyout from Google for $30 million in 2003.Friendster declined this offer.
Friendster was funded by Kleiner Perkins & Caufield and Benchmark Capital in 2003 October for a figure of $53 million.In the year 2007, Friendster launched Friendster Development Program and also launched the website in 9 regional languages.With the use of Development program of Friendster, users or developers can build widgets( tiny applications which can be placed on webpage).
By the year 2008, this website became the 7 th most visited website in the world and top social networking website in Asia. Friendster launched text alerts for users from Singapore, Malaysia, Indonesia and Philippines on June, 2008.
In August, 2008 Richard Kimbler was hired as CEO, who previously was regional managing director of South Asia for Google.
Current usage:
Friendster is the top social networking website in Asia and ranked 4th worldwide.It has over 90 million registered users and over 61 million unique visitors visit each month and receives over 19 billion page views per month and is ranked in top 100 websites in the world.
The countries which are using Friendster widely are Philippines, Indonesia, Malaysia ,South Korea, US, Singapore, China, Japan, Saudi Arabia and India ( according to Alexa).
Friendster was widely spread in Asian countries because it is available in regional languages. This social networking website is also used as an internet marketing place to promote products or services or website.Through this website, companies can reach customers who are targeted based on geographical location or on age group.
Future development:
Friendster at present has tough time in the social networking industry.Friendster lost its top position to MySpace and Facebook. Features like mobile text messaging can make this website to reach new markets and users.
Friendster also launched its API to developers, so they can create applications like games and other interactive content.
Friendster targets mostly users in age group above 16.
Fan profiles: One of Friendster future plan is to set up local celebrity fan profiles.This can increase the number of users of Friendster.
Collaborate with local companies: This social website collaborates with local companies to produce content that can attract more people.The content depends on the region of the users.
Better User Interface: Most user are away from this website because of its clutered interface.An easy to understand and use interface is needed from Friendster in future.
User benefits:
Much like all other social networking website, this website offers benefits such as reconnecting with your old friends and sharing media content such as photos, videos.
Users can make new relations and also find their old school or college friends through it.
Members can form into communities or groups in which they can join and discuss about a topic or of an interest.
Provides blog feature to its users.Using blogs users can express their fellings and thoughts.
Provides mobile text alerts, so its users can receive messages even if they are not logged on website.
Technical explanation:
Friendster works as follows :
To access the this website, you have to register using your email and desired username and password.
After registering and confirming your account, you are asked to update your profile.In the profile you can provide information such as your interests, hobbies and what you do.
The profile is your home page, from here you can search for friends and view what your friends are. From your profile you can post comments or messages to your friends.
Photos and videos can also be posted from your profile page.
Applications can be placed on your profile so that any other user visiting your profile can use these applications.
Current trends:
At current times, Friendster lost its place to new comers such as MySpace and Facebook, although it is still the top social networking website in Asia region.
Friendster is currently older age group between 18+ and is keeping its effort to regain its top place in social networking websites and it reveals that the recent changes have gained 40% more site visitors in a month.
Usage worldwide:
Friendster has its user base mainly concentrated in Asian countries.Friendster has over 90 million registered users and over 61 million unique visitors a month globally. The website receives approximately 19 billion page views per month, and is in the top 100 global website based on web traffic.
Over 90% of this website's traffic comes from Asia. In Asia, it has more monthly unique visitors than any other social network.The top 10 countries accessing Friendster, according to Alexa, as of May 7, 2009 are the Philippines, Indonesia, Malaysia, South Korea, the United States, Singapore, China, Japan, Saudi Arabia and India.
Content by Mark Anderson, Websites4results
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