Friendster- connect with your friends
Friendster history:
Friendster is a social networking web site which allows its users to contact with others, portion content suchlike photos, videos.
The name friendster comes from combining of “friend” and “napster”. The intent of this web site is to concede people to communicate from anyplace.
Friendster became mostly widely known and esteemed 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 web site went live on march, 2003 and in basic three months more than 3 million users have registered.
The organization was furnished financially by kleiner perkins caufield & byers, benchmark capital, dag ventures and idg ventures.
The regional languages in which this web site is available are: indonesian, chienese, malay, japanese, korean. Frienster was one of basic social networking platform and stood on top until 2004, when myspace took on the place.
Development:
The friendster web site went live on march, 2003. In the basic 3 months of its launch, friendster obtained large 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 furnished by kleiner perkins & caufield and benchmark capital in 2003 october for a figure of $53 million. In the year 2007, friendster inroduced friendster development program and also launched the web site in 9 regional languages. With the use of development program of friendster, users or developers can build appliances( tiny applications which can be placed on webpage).
By the year 2008, this web site became the 7 th most visited web site internationally and top social networking web site in asia. Friendster launched text alerts for users from countries like malaysia, indonesia, singapore and philippines on june, 2008.
In august, 2008 richard kimbler was hired as ceo, who antecedently was regional managing director of south asia for google.
Current usage:
Friendster is the top social networking web site in asia and rated 4th worldwide. It has more than 90 million registered users and over 61 million distinctive visitants visit every month and receives over 19 billion page opinions per month and is rated in top 100 web sites internationally.
The countries which are using friendster vastly are philippines, indonesia, malaysia ,south korea, us, singapore, china, japan, saudi arabia and india ( as stated by alexa).
Friendster was widely disseminate in asian countries because it is available in regional languages. This social networking web site is also employed as an internet marketing place to advertize productions or services or web site. Through this web site, companies can accomplish customers who are aimed grounded on geographical location or on age group.
Future development:
Friendster at present is going through the hard time in the social networking industry. Friendster lost its top position to myspace and facebook. Features like mobile text messaging may make this web site to reach new markets and users.
Friendster also launched its api to developers, so they can fabricate applications like games and other interactional 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 web site collaborates with local companies to fabricate content that can attract more people. The content depends on the region of the users.
Better user interface: most user are away from this web site due to its clutered interface. An easy to realise and use interface is necessitated from friendster in future.
User benefits:
Much like all other social networking web site, this web site offers benefits suchlike reconnecting with your old friends and sharing media content suchlike photos, videos.
Users may make new relations and also find their old school or college friends through it.
Members can form into groups or communities in where 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’re not logged on web site.
Technological explanation:
Friendster works as follows :
To access the this web site, you have to register using your email and desired username and password.
After registering and confirming your account, you are requested to update your profile. In the profile you can provide info suchlike 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 remarks or messages to your friends.
Photos and videos can also be posted from your profile page.
Applications can be situated 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 suchlike myspace and facebook, although it is still the top social networking web site in asia region.
Friendster is presently older age group amid 18+ and is holding its effort to regain its top place in social networking web sites and it reveals that the recent changes have gained 40% more web site visitants in a month.
Usage worldwide:
Friendster has its user base greatly concentrated in asian countries. Friendster has more than 90 million registered users and over 61 million distinctive visitants a month internationally. The web site receives approximately 19 billion page opinions per month, and is in the top 100 worldwide web site grounded on web traffic.
Over 90% of this website’s traffic comes from asia. In asia, it has more per month distinctive visitants than any other social network. The top 10 countries accessing friendster, as stated by alexa, as of can 7, 2009 are the philippines, indonesia, malaysia, south korea, the united states, singapore, china, japan, saudi
