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Friendster Back from the Dead?

Posted by ryuzaki0 on from the brains? dept.

garzpacho writes "With a fresh infusion of $10 million in funding, Friendster is making a bid to rejoin the social networking A-list. The cash, from VC firm DAG Ventures, accompanies plans for a complete project redesign, a focus on adult users and a newly awarded patent for social networking. A real comeback might be unlikely, though: 'Turnaround stories for companies that draw on advanced Web technology known collectively as Web 2.0 remain unprecedented, says David Sze, a general partner at Greylock who specializes in consumer Internet companies but does not invest in Friendster. Still, Sze says Friendster doesn't need to have a MySpace-size traffic explosion to turn a profit. Says Sze in an e-mail, 'If those users are reasonably valuable and monetizable, I think [investors] can make money on their investment.''"

2 of 91 comments (clear)

  1. Friendster is great, but by drgroove · · Score: 3, Interesting

    Friendster is great, but, though I personally traffic it more than MySpace, I'll never pay to use it (or allow myself to be nickel-and-dimed for using features within it), nor will I click on any ads featured within it. Frankly, I don't see how monetization of Friendster is possible; even those of my colleagues who are "hard core" Friendster users (i.e., visiting the site daily, frequent message/picture posting, etc) have no intention of paying for the service. Too many free options exist outside of Friendster for this approach to be successful; users will simply flock to the next "free" (as in beer) social networking service should Friendster become too heavily monetized.

    I think they're doomed.

  2. Wanna compete with myspace? by British · · Score: 3, Interesting

    It's easy, Friendster, just do what your competitors can't do.

    1. Quit having unexpected errors every 10 minutes
    2. Actual search functions that allow exact matches, etc. Not a fake search engine that returns everything.
    3. No huge influx of Brazilian users
    4. Don't allow customization of pages to the point of saturating a T1 connection upon viewing.
    5. Actual active moderators(in message boards, etc).
    6. No spyware-deploying ads.
    7. No private profiles. No purpose of a private profile on a social networking site.
    8. No orkut-like invite system. No new user filtration like facebook has.
    9. And the big one: no spambots allowed. Captchas, ACTIVE IP banning, and numerous other defenses. Myspace is losing the war on this.

    If Friendster can set a solid ground with doing the above, maybe they can get some converts from those who are tired of myspace's problems.