23 August 2006 | Author: D. Miller

Friendster social networking aims at new growth with $10 million investment

With the confirmation of a $10 million investment Friendster, the web's original social networking site, is set to make a comeback. With online social networking continuing to grow, Friendster president Kent Lindstorm is confident that he can return the company to its original vision of building on 'real-world' relationships between friends rather than virtual friendships, which have become the bread and butter of other social networking sites.

"We are hopefully your place to link to your real post-college friends," stated Mr Lindstorm in an interview recently.

Back in 2004, when the Friendster site launched it was a pioneer of social networking which for the first time offered users the chance to catch up and communicate with friends online. The ability to search for and locate friends online was an instant hit with web users and sparked a round of initial investment in other sites which resulted in the birth of some of Friendster's larger competitors.

The craze for social networking online and the clever targeting of different sites has resulted in the online social community dividing into different peer groups which Lindstrom plans to utilise, targeting Friendster at the urban professional in stark contract to the well known MySpace, which currently enjoys a majority share of the online teen market, and Facebook, which is more popular with students.

According to statistics released by Hitwise Inc, MySpace currently holds 51 percent of the U.S. social networking market. This is ten times more than the second ranking Facebook, with 4.7 percent of recent visits. Currently, Friendster attracts 0.24 percent, or 213 times fewer U.S. visitors than MySpace, placing it 34th among U.S. web users of social networks and online communities.

One major part of the new strategy for the Friendster site, according to Lindstorm, is to concentrate on the international community which currently accounts for a quarter of the site's eight to nine million regular users. Lindstrom highlights that: "40 percent of users come from English-speaking Asia - places like Indonesia, the Philippines and Singapore, where large expatriate populations often turn to Friendster to find friends upon arriving in new cities". Alongside the 40 coming from Asia, the site's European and South American appeal is healthy, with 25 percent of the current audience based in Britain, France and Mexico.

"We have a very international point of view," Lindstrom claims. This transformation appears to mirror Google, whose rival networking service, Orkut, is increasingly popular within the Brazilian community - estimated to account for roughly three-quarters of its global users.

As the new Friendster site develops Lindstrom is adamant that, "We will innovate in terms of meeting up with people," and avoid the drive towards entertainment that their rivals take, the most notable being MySpace and YouTube's provision of online video. The site is looking to sign up brand advertising to target its key audience, these will include high profile brands such as Coca-Cola.

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