Friendster

Friendster is an Internet social network service. The Friendster site was founded in Mountain View, California, United States by Jonathan Abrams in March 2002^[1] and is privately owned. Friendster is based on the Circle of Friends (social network) and Web of Friends techniques for networking individuals in virtual communities and demonstrates the small world phenomenon. It currently has over 50 million users ^[2] and is mostly used in Asia^[3][4].

History

Friendster was considered the top online social network service until around April 2004 when it was overtaken by MySpace in terms of page views, according to Nielsen Online (Although the Nielsen is facing rating crisis currently with the issue from ABS-CBN.^[5] Friendster has also received competition from all-in-one sites such as Windows Live Spaces, Bebo, Yahoo! 360, and Facebook. Of late, newer websites like hi5 are posing new competition for Friendster.^[6]

Google offered $30,000,000 to buy out Friendster in 2003, but they were turned down.^[7]

Friendster was funded by Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers and Benchmark Capital in October 2003 with a reported valuation of $53 million.

In April 2004, John Abrams was removed as CEO and Tim Koogle took over as interim CEO. Koogle previously served as President and CEO at Yahoo!. Koogle was later replaced by Scott Sassa in June 2004. Sassa left in May 2005 and was replaced by Taek Kwon. Taek Kwon was then succeeded by Kent Lindstrom, following a recapitalization by Kleiner and Benchmark that valued Friendster at less than one-twentieth its 2003 valuation.

Friendster's decision to remain private instead of selling to Google in 2003 is considered one of the biggest blunders of Silicon Valley, the Associated Press claims.

Patent

Based on a June 16, 2003 application, Friendster was awarded a patent in 2006 for a method and apparatus for calculating, displaying and acting upon relationships in a social network. Dubbed the Web of Friends because the method combines the Circle of Friends with the Web of Contacts, the system collects descriptive data about various individuals and allows those individuals to indicate other individuals with whom they have a personal relationship. The descriptive data and the relationship data are integrated and processed to reveal the series of social relationships connecting any two individuals within a social network. The pathways connecting any two individuals can be displayed. Further, the social network itself can be displayed to any number of degrees of separation. A user of the system can determine the optimal relationship path (i.e., contact pathway) to reach desired individuals. A communications tool allows individuals in the system to be introduced (or introduce themselves) and initiate direct communication.