Screenshot of Friendster's main page, updated in July 2011
Type of site
Social network game
Founded
2002; 22 years ago (2002)
Headquarters
Dover, Delaware
,
United States
Area served
Worldwide
Key people
Ganesh Kumar Bangah (CEO)
URL
www.friendster.com
Advertising
Banner ads, Contextual ads, Sponsorships
Registration
Free
Users
8.2 million (June 2010)[1]
Launched
March 22, 2003; 21 years ago (March 22, 2003)
Current status
Defunct (as a social networking site) Closed (as a social gaming site on June 14, 2015; as a company on June 30, 2018)
Friendster was a social network based in Mountain View, California, founded by Jonathan Abrams and launched in March 2003.[2][3] Later, the company became a social gaming site based in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia. Before Friendster was redesigned, the service allowed users to contact other members, maintain those contacts, and share online content and media with those contacts.[4] 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 profiles and networks.[4] It is considered one of the original social networks.[5]
After the launching of Friendster as a social gaming platform in June 2011, the number of registered users reached over 115 million. The company operated mainly from four Asian countries: the Philippines, Malaysia, Thailand, and Singapore, and over 90% of the site's traffic came from Asia. As of 2008, Friendster had more monthly unique visitors than any other social network in Asia.[6][7][8] Friendster remained notably popular in Indonesia through 2012.[9]
The company suspended services in 2015, citing "the evolving landscape in our challenging industry" and lack of engagement by the online community,[10] and ceased trading in 2018.
^"DoubleClick Ad Planner". Archived from the original on October 10, 2010. Retrieved November 2, 2011.
^Eric Eldon, August 4, 2008. "Friendster raises $20 million, nabs a Googler to be CEO Archived August 24, 2017, at the Wayback Machine" VentureBeat. Retrieved December 4, 2008.
^Gary Rivlin, October 15, 2006. "Wallflower at the Web Party Archived April 19, 2017, at the Wayback Machine." New York Times. Retrieved December 4, 2008.
^ ab"Friendster at a Glance document" (PDF). Images.friendster.com. Archived from the original (PDF) on July 31, 2009.
^"May: Month of the Internet Rapture – TNW Social Media". Thenextweb.com. May 20, 2011. Archived from the original on August 26, 2018. Retrieved October 22, 2011.
^ComScore Press Release, June 30, 2008. "India and China Propel Internet Audience Growth in Asia-Pacific Region, According to comScore Archived May 5, 2009, at the Wayback Machine", Press Release. Retrieved October 27, 2008.
^Ling Woo Liu, January 29, 2008. "Friendster Moves to Asia Archived May 26, 2009, at the Wayback Machine", TIME. Retrieved October 27, 2008.
^"Friendster.com - Living the Game". Friendster.com. Archived from the original on December 19, 2008.
^Saylor, Michael (2012). The Mobile Wave: How Mobile Intelligence Will Change Everything. Perseus Books/Vanguard Press. pp. 129, 304. ISBN 978-1593157203.
^"Friendster.com – Living the Game". Archived from the original on November 20, 2002.
Friendster was a social network based in Mountain View, California, founded by Jonathan Abrams and launched in March 2003. Later, the company became a...
engineer, entrepreneur, and investor. He is best known as the founder of Friendster where he worked from 2002 to 2005. He then founded Socializr, where he...
losing its American audience, Friendster slowly gained users from Southeast Asia starting in the Philippines. Friendster director of engineering Chris...
Ryze contributed to the development of subsequent social networking services such as Friendster, founded by Jonathan Abrams in 2003. Official website...
Friendster, a top 50 Internet site that pioneered social networking. Friendster was backed by Kleiner Perkins and Benchmark Capital. After Friendster...
applications using version 0.7 to be launched on Friendster and reach Friendster over 75 million users. Friendster also plans to support additional OpenSocial...
of Myspace in August 2003. He founded the site partly as a reaction to Friendster and its policy of blocking accounts that did not use real names. Intermix...
social media platforms gained widespread popularity with the likes of Friendster and Myspace, followed by Facebook, YouTube, and Twitter, among others...
Google buy out rumor Meetro Purchases Friendster for $17,000.00 CDN and A Hand Job... Meetro Acquires Friendster... Google acquires Meetro, absolutely...
settlement and acquired intellectual property formerly held by rival Friendster. The majority of the companies acquired by Meta are based in the United...
Associates from 2003 to 2004. While an investor, he provided seed funding to Friendster, a social networking service. In December 2003, Baszucki, along with Erik...
Group for $60 million. List of social networking services VK Facebook Friendster Orkut Internet portal Raice, Shayndi (December 14, 2011). "Tagged acquires...
1999, Makeoutclub in 2000, Cyworld in 2001, Hub Culture in 2002, and Friendster and Nexopia in 2003. Cyworld also became one of the first companies to...
MySpace and Six Apart join Orkut, Salesforce, LinkedIn, Ning, Hi5, Plaxo, Friendster, Viadeo and Oracle as announced Google partners. "Viadeo's "Global-Yet-Local"...
Viant Technology LLC. In August 2003, several eUniverse employees with Friendster accounts saw potential in its social networking features. The group decided...
have an internet connection. The earliest social networking sites were Friendster, Myspace, Facebook, and Twitter in 2002, 2003, 2004, and 2006, respectively...
the original on 2016-08-19. Retrieved 2016-07-26. "Friendster.com - Living the Game". www.friendster.com. Archived from the original on 2002-11-20. Retrieved...
tools and strategy to grow from 15,000 members to 20 million. Song joined Friendster, a social networking company, after a six year stint at eBay. She was...
Magdalo Group in 2008. The group uses social networking websites such as Friendster and Facebook to recruit supporters across the Philippines. The Samahang...
(personally or through Founders Fund), including Airbnb, Slide.com, LinkedIn, Friendster, RapLeaf, Geni.com, Yammer, Yelp Inc., Spotify, Powerset, Practice Fusion...
the initial management team at Friendster, responsible for Friendster's international operations. While at Friendster, Hurd monetized a user base that...
tagging, rather than creating explicit interpersonal links (as seen in Friendster and Orkut). Users created accounts and then listed a number of goals or...
new era also brought into existence social networking websites, such as Friendster, MySpace, Facebook, and Twitter, and photo- and video-sharing websites...
Review. DeAmicis, Carmel (10 January 2015). "How Couchsurfing became the Friendster of the sharing economy". GigaOm. Vivion, Nick (11 October 2013). "CouchSurfing...
ISBN 9781506338255. DeAmicis, Carmel (10 January 2015). "How Couchsurfing became the Friendster of the sharing economy". Gigaom. Archived from the original on 14 November...
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