Friendster Bids Farewell to its User Profiles Today

Friendster, once the reigning king of social networking sites, will delete user accounts Tuesday.

Founded in 2003 in Mountain View and located at 800 W. El Camino Real, the company boasted 115 million registered users at its height. Google attempted to buy the company, but Friendster rejected the offer; instead, Google launched Orkut to compete.

Similar to Facebook, which did not launch until 2004, Friendster users could update their profiles with photos and information about themselves and accumulate a network of friends through the concept of "degrees of separation." According to a New York Times article, it was Friendster that coined the phrase "social networking."

However, both Facebook and MySpace blew past Friendster, and now the site will be converted to a social gaming and entertainment hub centered on Asia. Acquired by the Malaysian MOL Global in December 2009 for $39.5 million, its most active users since then have been in Malaysia, the Philippines and Singapore. 

Friendster follows the familiar pattern of MySpace, which used to be a social networking site but has now become devoted to entertainment, said Barry Parr, a MediaSavvy blogger and former senior analyst at Forrester Research.

“MySpace and Friendster were high fliers in a market and reached the edge of their ability to compete and then sort of fell by the wayside,” he said. “So you have to look at their strategies, as it might be the right thing to do, but I don't know if it's going to necessarily be successful.”

The CEO of MOL Global declined media interviews until June, according to Nor Baldron, senior vice president of marketing in Singapore.

But research reveals a growing market in Asia for such social networking sites, especially in locales where Facebook has not achieved the same ubiquity and popularity of the U.S.

“Singapore is one of the most advanced digital markets in the Asia-Pacific region and represents a growing opportunity for digital marketers,” said Will Hodgman, comScore executive vice president, in a recent report.

Singaporeans spent 14 percent of their online time on entertainment, which includes popular web brands like YouTube and MediaCorp, while social networking accounted for 8 percent. Social networkers in the Philippines also showed the highest level of engagement on social networking sites, according to a study done last year by comScore. Social networking sites averaged 5.5 hours per visitor in February, with visitors frequenting the social networking category an average of 26 times during the month.

“Social media is something that is going to be really lumpy by country,” said Parr, pointing out that the site doesn’t need a Mountain View presence. “Your social network is likely to be mostly in one country, speaking one language and so forth. So once a company is prevalent in a place, it is not going to be easy for them to be dislodged by a Facebook or any other competitor.”

In an unofficial survey of a dozen or so 20-and 30-somethings at Red Rock Cafe in downtown Mountain View, none still used the site. Most people returned blank stares when questioned about Friendster, because they had never  heard of it.

“No one stands a chance against Facebook,” said local Katherine Tolentino. “It was a slow, pernicious takeover.”

Abhishek Bansal, a local computer scientist, remained more optimistic, pointing out that gaming could be the niche Friendster needs to reinvent itself.

“It can be successful if it allows users to show their smartness and customize it to a product of their own,” he said.