|
By Ike Suarez, Tech Times Correspondent
The Philippines has the world’s most number of
Friendster users, with 10.7 million Filipinos accounting for the 58
million all over the world registered with this online social
network.
David Jones, vice-president for global marketing
at Friendster, gave this disclosure as he held recently a roundtable
discussion with technology journalists at the Ascend bar in
Bonifacio High Street, Taguig.
The San Francisco-based Jones led a small group
of Friendster executives who flew to Manila as part of an Asian tour
to promote new features of this online social network. He is also
visiting the Philippines to lay the groundwork for the expansion of
its office in the country whose employees render various forms of
online support and applications development for its global
operations reaching users in 75 countries.
According to Jones, its Philippine office in
Legazpi Village is the only other office it has in the world
in addition to its head office in San Francisco.
During the media interview, Jones said Filipinos
make up 38.8 percent of Friendster’s users worldwide as he cited
figures by Alexa.com, an independent online usage research firm in
the US to back up his statement. Trailing the Philippines in the
percentages of the total number of the online social network’s
users were the following: Malaysia (18.6 percent), Indonesia (14.6
percent), Singapore (14.3 percent), United States (3.2
percent), United Arab Emirates (1.2 percent), Canada (0.8 percent),
United Kingdom (0.6 percent), Australia (0.5 percent), Hong
Kong (0.5 percent), Japan (0.3 percent) and India (0.2 percent).
Jones said Friendster would add more features
and at the same time, it would leverage its large number of users to
generate online advertising, corporate sponsorship for its various
sites, and revenues from other marketing activities.
In line with this, Friendster would soon open a
marketing arm in the Philippines and was presently looking for a
marketing manager and a sales force here, Jones said. Adding, that
the country would be the first in its online marketing expansion
globally with other countries still to be determined.
Jones said that among the additional features to
Friendster this year would be more Asian languages sites, enhanced
fan profiles sites, mobile devices connectivity, and more robust
search features and functionalities.
At the same time, Friendster is inviting
developers to create widgets—small applications that could be
added to the online social network to enhance its appeal to users.
Though the developers would be screened and their applications
tested before rollout, there would be no revenue sharing agreements
required.
Friendster opened its Philippine office early
2007 and its staff here accounts for 27 out of its total number of
60 employees, according to Jones.
Talking to Tech Times, Jones cited the Filipino
people’s friendliness and sociability as a people, the large
numbers of Filipinos abroad, and the site’s ease of use compared
to rivals MySpace and Facebook as reasons for its widespread
popularity in the Philippines.
He also noted that Friendster was founded in
2002 in Mountain View, California, a state with large numbers of
Filipino immigrans and Fil-Americans. “We had them as users
from day one of our operations,” Jones said. “And they used
Friendster to network with friends and relatives in the Philippines,
enabling a social network to build here also.”
Asked by Tech Times if Filipino was among those
to be added to the Asian languages sites this year, he sidestepped
the question by replying, “We will announce in due time.”
|
