Friendster, Still the Largest in Asia

Cameron Ng is a citizen of the World Wide Web. He once gave up actual food just so that he could do Stratholme one more time. The first thing he does every morning when he wakes up is to check his Twitter account and his Facebook profile. The Internet is his life.

Update: In terms of site traffic, Facebook is currently the #1 site for the Philippines, while Friendster is the third most-visited social network site at #12.

Contrary to popular belief, there used to be a time when Facebook did not exist.

Shocking, but true.

In those days, we had Friendster. This was even before the advent of MySpace or Bebo, both of which have never truly captured the hearts and minds of Asian youths.

“Friendster? Pfft, Friendster’s dead,” you scoff at me while tending to your farms and recruiting more potential members for you mafia familia. “Not true,” I reply indignantly. “And here’s why.”

Although reports of its death have been circulating since the early noughties, Friendster is alive and well within Asia. In its Q3 report from 2009, Friendster had over 115 million registered users worldwide, with over 100,000 users registering new accounts daily.

In fact, with over 75 million registered users, Friendster has more registered users than any other social network within the Asian region (Granted, some of these users may no longer be active). In comparison, Facebook has 59.6 million registered users in Asia. In the Philippines, Friendster is the #1 social network, a top 3 website and the #1 mobile site, and has over 12 million monthly unique visitors.

Just last month, Friendster announced that it is launching social media portals for music and social gaming fans in Asia. Called, rather creatively, Friendster Music and Friendster Games, these portals seek to champion independent music from around the region and deliver community-driven MMO web games to Friendster users respectively.

Not the social media behemoth that it once was, but surely its death has been prematurely announced.

And, fun fact, Friendster has even managed to help authorities bring 3 criminals to justice in the Philippines, as members of the Friendster community used search and photos to identify and locate the suspects.

In short, it would be unwise to discount the business potential of Friendster at least within the Asian market. With Facebook being more of a global product, Friendster may be a better avenue for social marketing in Asia.

Also, feel free to add me as a friend on Friendster!