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STRIKE a conversation about social networking in the
Philippines and inevitably the talk begins and ends with Friendster.
And the cold facts leave little room for argument on that score.
In this sunny archipelago there
are 7 million registered users, with most of them checking their
Friendster accounts on a daily basis, thus accounting for a whopping
87 percent of the Internet traffic in the
Philippines—interestingly, balanced evenly between gals and guys!
When you consider that Friendster
(which first saw life in 2002 as a “social experiment” on the
part of its Californian founder Jonathan Abrams who was having
problems getting up close and personal on an on-line dating site)
has 40 million registered users spread across 75 counties, its easy
to see why the Philippines ranks No. 1 on its Top 5 of
users—Malaysia, Indonesia, USA and Singapore completing the
ratings in that order.
So, yesterday, we got a chance to
meet with Jeff Roberto.
Marketing/PR Director of
Friendster Inc., who arrived here from the company’s San Francisco
base on his first visit to South East Asia which—with 111 million
page views emanating from the region—easily represents the
pioneering social network’s biggest and most vibrant market.
Says Roberto: “ Friendster’s
power lies in its product. Our users on the whole find it an easier
and more personal experience than other sites. And this year the
experience just got better with Friendster incorporating several new
web features that promise to enhance connections between users and
allow Friendster users to further explore their own creativity.”
With a refreshed and reener-gized
look of the modified profile page, Friendster combines a more
dynamic feel with a slew of updated network features. These new
features include the new stats module, activity module, new featured
friends module, and enhanced recent updates module. All these allow
the user to see recent changes in the accounts of the network and be
reminded of these important notifications constantly.
Adds Roberto: “E-mail updates,
birthday alerts and a redesigned newsletter are some of the best
services offered by Friendster. A Friendster account makes
everything so efficient because it acts as a Web-based alarm clock
that reminds you of important dates and messages.”
Friendster, which attracted $13
million in private funding in 2006, first operated out of the San
Francisco Bay Area where many Filipinos live. Roberto pinpoints this
as a possible reason why Friendster is so phenomenally popular in
the Philippines.
He explains: “In the early days
many Filipinos living in San Francisco used Friendster to
communicate and say in touch with their friends and relatives in the
Philippines. This is what gave us a head start and helped build our
successful base there.”
While in this part of the world
Roberto is pitching Friendster’s fan profiles that allow real
mavens to quickly and efficiently build their communities to promote
celebrities, bands and other artists on Friendster.
This feature automatically sends
several types of e-mails to fans, triggered by the fan profile
owner’s activity. Fans can also find new fan profiles through
discovery modules on the site and in the global newsletter.
Says Roberto: “Friendster is
currently seeking beta testers for this new program. If you’re an
actor, athlete, author, bar or club owner, blogger, comedian, DJ,
events organizer, fashion brand retailer, film producer, journalist,
model, politician or promoter and would like to be included in the
beta program, e-mail fanprofiles@friendster.com.
We’ll contact you with more information.”
So there you go!
E-mail: bizzfizz_98@yahoo.com
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