Friendster — seriously, remember them? — is like the Coolio of social networking services; like the rapper, the website was once hip and edgy, but after a series of poor financial decisions is relegated to do desperate things to get the attention of, well, anyone. In Coolio’s case it’s to star on reality shows and make a cooking show on YouTube; in the case of Friendster, it’s a desperate play to keep loyal the one social group on Friendster that has not left Friendster for other networks like MySpace or Facebook in droves: Filipinos, Malaysians and Singaporeans.
Whereas previously, Friendster was branded as just your regular social networking site with a — wink wink, nudge nudge — very Asian fan base, their acquisition by Malaysian company MOL Global yesterday flips that on its head, revealing a branding campaign where Friendster is a friendly, personal site especially for you — if you’re 19-24 year old Filipino living in Asia, of course. The new branding campaign isn’t surprising to anyone who is paid to keep tabs of the social networking industry, but this will be particularly jarring to old members of Friendster, not the least of which includes Asian Americans. (And gay men. And Burning Man attendees. And veteran dot-commers.)
But who cares; you’re too busy taking care of your virtual farm on Facebook, right? Right.
(Full disclaimer: I work in the web industry; more specifically, in the social networking space.)
