Friendster is a social networking software – it allows your website to double as a dating site – working on the assumption that a friend’s friend can be a better dating partner as compared to a stranger. It operates on the view that people would be open with their identities on the website, so interaction would be open and truthful.

Friendster’s software allows users to create their profiles, view that of others, invite friends to join the site, write testimonials and much more. The website gained immense popularity but at one point could not maintain its standards; this led to the subsequent closure of the company. During this period, Friendster’s software underwent a series of modifications. It increased the age limit of its users from eighteen years and above to twenty-something.

Popularity Lost And Found

The website that lost its popularity in the social networking software market has marked its reemergence by receiving a recent investment of $10 million from DAG Ventures, Kleiner Perkins Caufield and Buyers and Benchmark Capital. It made use of the funds to elevate the speed and reliability of the site, as these were the basic areas of default that led to the defection of users.

The website regained more than 2 million members in their new easy-to-navigate matrix. According to Nielsen/ Net Ratings, an Internet measuring firm, Friendster had around 532,000 visitors in June ’06; 675,000 in July and 961,000 in August! In 2006 Alexa rating service rates Friendster as one of the most visited sites on the Internet – it is among the top hundred! The implications of these numbers, especially if you own your website and Internet business, are staggering.

In 2007 friendster gained more thn 27 new members and nowserves over 28 billion web pages!  With over 40 million unique visitors in April 2008 Friendster has well recovered.  They claim that 80,000 new users register on Friendster a day!  

Latest Advancements

Several additions to the features and presentation of the website along with its recent developments in order to regain its lost prestige have proven to be beneficial to investors. The latest advancements in the modification of its features includes automatic updates. It allows users to list the recent activities of their friends such as new photos and blogging. Friendster’s software even enables people to include videos on their sites with just the push of a button. The website has managed to raise a grand total of $13 million in venture capital and secure the first round of venture financing.

Most of Friendster’s growth comes from Asia.  Out of the 40 million unique visitors 36 million come from Asia; making it the #1 social networking community in Asia. Friendster increased in the number of users in Malaysia, Singapore, Thailand and Australia, proving that friendster’s software has the ability to extend the reach of your website globally.  With their multi-language options they claim over 69% of the world can use Friendster.  It even aims at focusing on post-college users; urban young adults who are be to connect to people in different cities for assessing their career prospects and employment opportunities. In addition to this, the site now focuses on other activities of its users, aside from inviting people to the site to surf profiles of other users.

Recent Features/Additions

Friendster has plans to add to its features, such as introducing Voice Over Internet Protocol (VOIP) that will allow its users to download the phone software to their computers. There are plans to introduce many more valuable services – such as mobile communications – that will attract millions of more users.  Just like Facebook, they now have a open platform, which allows developers to deploy applications and widgets via the friendster’s global socail network.

Social Networking Website Design is the future of Internet business. Friendster is a great example of a network that lost U.S demographics but found an extremely large niche market in Asia.  Due to the huge number of people using the Internet and signing up on social networking sites in droves (and many use more than one!), it has the potential to be very profitable – that’s why many Internet business owners are jumping on the bandwagon, sooner rather than later!

If you would like to learn more about Friendster’s Software please contact us.