Silicon Beat’s post on Jonathan Abrams’ rumored new startup sent me down a path of catching up on Friendster. There are very interesting signs of a turnaround, which surprises me but is a great validator for some of my projects. Buried in the comments of TechCrunch’s Friendster recap post are two fascinating remarks made by Filipinos:
Comment by Migs — February 10, 2006 @ 11:09 pm Friendster is big here (Philippines) - see Wired News, We’re a Hit in Manila! Now What? They bought a local company and are building an a system.
Comment by Nin-nin — February 22, 2006 @ 12:34 am I use Friendster to keep in touch with my friends and family in the Philippines because they all use it. I live in Australia and many of my friends have never even heard of Friendster and this is the first time I’ve used it. I just hope that Friendster is able to hang in there.. MABUHAY FRIENDSTER!
Following the links in the comments, one quickly comes across Friendster’s claim of “The earth’s first pre-paid online advertising platform” and Friendster Classifieds’s global country picker. It seems that Kleiner wants to provide competition to Craigslist’s overseas sites and to Ebay’s Kijiji.com
The turnaround appears to be working — and quickly. Looking at Alexa, Friendster broke into the top 50 sites last week for the first time since December 2004. Moving from number 150 to 50 in 90 days is no accident.
Given the site’s strength among Asians living at home and abroad, its more than 27 million registered members, and the new authoring tools capable of building MySpace-like pages, Kleiner’s second-generation Friendster investment is looking pretty good.
[...] Scott Rafer writes about the resurgence of Friendster in his latest post. Goes to show that you can’t give up on certain sites just because they are not the cat’s meow in the States. There is a huge world market out there with many spheres of influence. [...]
[...] Scott Rafer makes some interesting arguments (check his comments with James Gross). As for us, since we are essentially Friendster Philippines, our job has been to focus sustainable business models around Friendster, which mainly falls in the realm of mobile (SMS). [...]
[...] Facebook might have dominated the headlines, and the conversation, but look who is making a comeback, and catching up: Friendster. Sure, Alexa rankings are as reliable as the New York Yankees pitching, but for what its worth, it still merits a look. Scott Rafer pointed out earlier that Friendster is big in Asia, Phillipines in particular. It cannot be monetized! What if Friendster could work with a local mobile company in Phillipines, and did a Friendster MVNO. [...]