friendster

If you can't join 'em, beat 'em: this seems to be Google's rally cry, and this time its Facebook taking a potential beating. The New York Times is reporting that Google is in the process of creating an open platform to allow software developers to write widgets and full-fledged programs for Orkut. Never heard of it? It's the Google version of Facebook/MySpace. But Google decided to make it a swarming strategy; the platform will also allow development for other social media sites including Friendster, LinkedIn, Ning, Plaxo, and Facebook's arch rival, MySpace.

Facebook has built … Read more

Onetime social-networking leader Friendster has announced a new feature called "Fan Profiles," which is essentially a way for celebrities, bands, companies, nonprofit organizations and other entities to self-promote.

Among "early adopters" of the new feature are Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton, comedian Dane Cook, and pop-punk band Fall Out Boy, all of which now have "fan profiles" on the social network.

The formal announcement was made at a press lunch at the DigitalLife consumer technology trade show in New York on Thursday.

It's an ambitious move for the struggling social network, but one … Read more

Social-networking pioneer Friendster might have been losing out to rivals Facebook and MySpace for some time now, but the company isn't giving up any time soon. The San Francisco-based company announced on Monday evening that its site is now available in traditional Chinese in addition to English.

This is a strategic move for Friendster, as numbers have shown that it's far from dead in the Asia-Pacific region, where 35 million of its 50 million users are based--in fact, ComScore numbers have indicated that with global growth taken into account, Friendster is growing more quickly than MySpace. Traditional Chinese, … Read more

Tim posted below on this blog about the new generation of social-networking sites and whether they can attract another round of users. (What are we on now, the third generation since Friendster launched in 2002? These things have almost as short generational cycles as fruit flies!)

As he rightly points out, there are many incentives but also challenges to bringing out a social network at this point in time. It's similar in some ways to the challenges faced by serialized TV shows that came in the wave after 24 and Lost.

Serialized shows where a story arc crosses over … Read more

If you want instant messaging without an extra app, there's always Meebo. For those missing out on the desktop experience, however, there's a new solution called AirTalkr that does multiclient IM sans a full installation using Adobe's Integrated Runtime (AIR). The service works with five of the major clients, along with several Web services including YouTube, Flickr, along with Twitter and MySpace. In addition to its AIR namesake, there's also a Web version that has identical functionality sans the install, if you're willing to relegate yourself to the Windows Vista-style virtual desktop it creates in your browser.

The app breaks up IM, photos and videos into three different tabs. The IM is multitabbed and supports something called AirCards, which pull up your buddy's MySpace and Friendster profile, along with Flickr shots, Twitter updates, blog, and profile on LinkedIn from their e-mail address. If it can't find it, there are links to ask your buddy (which will start a conversation) or add it yourself using another e-mail address or a URL.

The photos tab links up with Flickr, and if you're a Flickr user you can authorize your the app to browse your photos, which can be opened up and viewed on your desktop. The Video feature is a little more basic, with four pages full of popular and featured videos from YouTube that play in a small window, along with a search tool. The video player is small and cannot be resized, which is where the illusion of a real app begins to break down.

All in all, Air Talkr is off to a good start, although it's in a very competitive field. Competitors like Meebo have things like buddy list pop-out, file transfer, and public rooms. AIR is also a bit young, and still very much in beta. Keep an eye on this one, though, the AirCard concept is a second layer of convergence on top of multiclients that might make this one stand out.

To see a video of Air Talkr in action, click the read more link below. On a related note, if you're a developer working on a hands-on video with your service, Kelly Clarkson is not the way to go.

[via Mashable] … Read more

Statistics house ComScore released some numbers on Tuesday pertaining to how quickly a handful of popular social-networking sites are growing worldwide, and which ones dominate in which regions of the globe. There's nothing all too notable here, as the global reach of various social-networking sites has been well-documented already--and even mapped. But it's always cool to see numbers, which I suppose is why companies like ComScore exist in the first place.

The main set of numbers tracks worldwide social-networking growth, with June 2006 and June 2007 as the benchmarks, for seven services: MySpace, Facebook, Bebo, Orkut, Hi5, Friendster, … Read more

Category: Community

Friendster is an incredibly popular social network, and also one of the most talked-about in the Web community. Friendster was one of the first sites to offer user profiles and the capability to network with others. This very functionality led to a patent by the United States Patent office that has been the subject of some criticism both about patents in general and their effect on Web services.

Friendster turned down a bid by Google to buy the service in 2003, which is right around the time when the site grew too large and popular for its servers … Read more

Friendster founder Jonathan Abrams has released a new Web site in "gamma" called Socializr.

Friendster, which just patented another networking technology to bolster profitability, is credited with sparking the social-networking craze among Internet users.

Abrams' Socializr, meanwhile, offers online tools for event planning. Users can send personal messages or invitations, post public invites or notes on forums, design invitations and upload photos for albums, in addition to creating personal or company profiles.

The site has been in private testing since September 2006 and went live on Friday, according to Socializr spokesperson Toni Graham.

Socializr, it seems, is very … Read more

In another attempt to bolster its profitability, pioneering social-networking site Friendster said Thursday it has received its third U.S. patent in the past nine months.

Officially awarded by the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office on March 6, Patent No. 7,188,153 B2 covers "System and Method for Managing Connections in an Online Social Network."

The San Francisco-based outfit's first patent, granted in July 2006, covers "A System, Method and Apparatus for Connecting Users in an Online Computer System Based on Their Relationships within Social Networks." It landed a second patent in October … Read more