Yeah, I used Friendster back in the day. Although I have to say after the initial sign-up, friend connections, and testimonials, I stopped using it. They billed themselves as a dating site - a safer and more casual way to get introduced because you're meeting your friend's friends instead of a complete stranger like it is with Match.com. I wasn't looking for a date back then, and I felt too embarrassed to ask friends for introductions, so I had no reason to go back to the site. It's a good idea in theory, but not in practice. Friendster never succeeded in the path of a dating site. It didn't get a chance to even try. The site was down most of the time or impossible to log into.
MySpace came in, was a stable and reliable service, and people moved over. MySpace was no innovator, but it was great at copying. It started off by copying Friendster, pixel for pixel, feature for feature. HotorNot was popular back then, so MySpace copied them and allow people to rate headshots. Xanga had skin-able blogs, so MySpace copied and incorporated those features into MySpace too. If there was a feature out there that works well with social networking, MySpace would go and copy it. It wouldn't bother with originality at all. Just copy the layout, design and features, and move on to another site.
Meanwhile, Facebook was lurking in the background and focused on college students.
When MySpace became the biggest social networking site back in 2004, most of the older guys were still kinda using Friendster. Then Facebook took them away too.
Nowadays, whenever I feel like taking a blast to the past, I check out my Friendster profile. I still have the same friends with the same old "Testimonials" from 2002 (or was it 2003, don't remember, it's been awhile). They claim to still have one million unique U.S. users, but I highly doubt any of them are still active. It's probably just guys like me who auto-post to it from ping.fm.
Friendster recently launched a redesign, hoping to differentiate itself from Facebook and MySpace. I kinda like it. It's not as generic-looking as MySpace or Facebook. It looks different, quirky, and it's green, my favorite color. I can't say the same about the layout though, which is organized like Facebook. Although I can't blame them. Facebook is the biggest social networking site in the world. Even MySpace is looking more and more like Facebook.
To build buzz for the redesign, Friendster created a promo video on YouTube. What's ironic is it sounds like a promo for MySpace – “my friends, my music, my this, my that, … MySpa… um… Friendster.”
I'm still surprised that Friendster is still around though. They have 75 million unique users, most of them in Asia. They have to be commended for doing a decent expansion into Asia. Unfortunately, Facebook recently launched in Asia, and already Friendster's users are migrating over.
I like the new look, but it didn't come with any new features. I don't think cosmetics is enough to fend off Facebook.
