Remember back in April when we reported that Friendster, one of the first dedicated social networking sites, was to unequivocally delete all user profiles photos, blogs, messages, groups and whatnot by May 31?
This morning, Friendster relaunched as yet another social gaming portal, powered by Facebook Connect (interesting comments over at Hacker News). → Read More
In 2005 Kyle MacDonald made a series of fourteen trades, beginning with a red paperclip and ending with a house. It took him less than a year. You all know the story. The Office did even an episode this year about the idea as well.
Well, Malaysia’s MOL Global now has somewhere around over $100 million in Facebook stock at the current secondary market valuation of around $31 per share. Until now, no one except insiders even knew they had any Facebook stock at all. But they do, and here’s how they got it, and it reminds me a lot of the Red Paperclip.
MOL Global bought Friendster, you may recall, in late 2009. They paid $39.5 million for the company, but with adjustments for things like Friendster’s cash in the bank it was actually somewhat less. → Read More
Before MySpace and Facebook, there was Friendster, a pioneering social networking website for consumers. First launched in 2002, Friendster attracted tens of millions of users over the years, but it never quite grew into the online juggernaut it could have been.
Having raised close to $50 million in venture capital, Friendster was acquired by Malaysian payments company MOL Global at the end of 2009 for a reported $40 million.
Fast forward to today, and it looks like Friendster won’t be so much about sharing with friends anymore. In a message to registered members (hat tip to @Mazi), the company is asking all users to install a custom application to export all their profile data, as most of it will be unequivocally deleted on May 31, 2011. → Read More
More news from the social network Friendster. The site, which was acquired in December by Malaysian payments company MOL Global, has struck a deal with Yahoo Southeast Asia. The purpose of the deal is to integrate product features and cross-promote across both Friendster and Yahoo. Both Friendster and Yahoo stand to gain from the partnership as Friendster has a significant Asian audience and Yahoo also has a steady following in the regional area for certain web services.
Friendster, which was sold for just under $30 million, has over 90 million registered users and 90 percent of its daily traffic coming from Southeast Asia today. The partnership will involve a a new social application built by Friendster that will be prominently displayed on Yahoo Southeast Asia properties and a cross-promotion of Yahoo products on Friendster. → Read More
We’ve got more details on the Friendster acquisition announced last week. Rumors were floating that the buyer, MOL Global, paid as much as $100 million for Friendster. The real price, we’ve confirmed from multiple sources, was under $30 million. Just a few months ago, based on comparable valuations from Bebo, LinkedIn and Facebook (and taking into account Friendster’s largely Asian audience), Friendster was worth between $98 million and $273 million.
The total purchase price paid was $39.5 million. But lots of stuff was deducted, totalling $13 million and change: → Read More
Log on to Friendster today and you’ll see a background image that says ‘Watch this face! … on December 4′. Turns out the pioneering social network is in for a major revamp tomorrow, including a new logo, tagline (“Connecting Smiles”) and an entirely fresh look.
Friendster outlines some of the changes in a video (embedded below), in which it calls out other social networks (*cough* Facebook and *cough* MySpace) for being plain and boring.
My absolute favorite part of the video: “I mean, if everyone’s there, woop de doo”. → Read More
I knew the glory days of Friendster were behind them, but I didn’t know things were this bad. The company is proudly announcing a partnership with Washington based people search company Intelius this evening. The goal, they say, is “to provide a more robust and comprehensive user search experience on Friendster and to power people searches originating on Friendster with results from across the web.”
What Friendster isn’t saying is how they’ll monetize this search, and whether Intelius’ scammy privacy services will be offered to Friendster users. Earlier this year we wrote again about Intelius and the myriad of lawsuits and consumer complaints that the company was fighting.
To summarize those posts, Intelius has been accused of tricking users into long term credit card subscriptions via a third party for worthless privacy protection products. → Read More
Friendster, one of the oldest social networks, is actively looking for a buyer and has hired investment bank Morgan Stanley to find a party interested in acquiring the company or at least some of its assets.
According to documents obtained exclusively by TechCrunch, it looks like Morgan Stanley is shopping Friendster around in Asia, which makes sense considering almost its entire user base is located in the Asian-Pacific region. In the main document (embedded below), it says that 75 percent of its registered accounts are in Asia. The docs come from a credible source, are time-stamped ‘July 2009′ and carry a number of interesting nuggets about the influence Friendster still has in the social networking sphere, even if mostly in Asia. → Read More
Even on the Web, world dominance must be achieved one country at a time. While Facebook has long been the largest social network in the world, and should soon pass MySpace in the U.S., it is not the largest social network in every country. The map above created by Vincenzo Cosenza resembles more a game of Risk, with Facebook sweeping across the globe from the West.
Using Alexa and Google Trend data, Cosenza color-coded the map based on which social network is the most popular in each country. All of the light green countries belong to Facebook. But there are still pockets of resistance in Russia (where V Kontakte rules), China (QQ), Brazil and India (Orkut), Central America, Peru, Mongolia, and Thailand (hi5), South Korea (Cyworld), Japan (Mixi), the Middle East (Maktoob), and the Philippines (Friendster). → Read More
A year ago we modeled out the true value of various social networks based on the idea that users in high-value online advertising markets like Japan, the UK and the U.S. were worth more (financially speaking) than those in lower value online advertising markets. Facebook had recently become the largest worldwide social network in terms of users, but based on our model MySpace was still by far the most valuable social network.
We’ve now remodeled social network valuations based on current user numbers and Facebook’s most recent $10 billion valuation. The results are dramatically different.
Based on the original year-old model, if Facebook was worth $15 billion (their then-current valuation), MySpace, with far more U.S. users, was worth nearly $20 billion:
Our model takes Comscore data for available countries and regions. We’ve graphed each of 26 well known social networks with the data we have been able to collect. We’ve then calculated the average advertising spend (estimated by PriceWaterhouseCoopers in a recent report) for each person online in each of those countries. For example, in the U.S., the total 2008 estimated Internet advertising spend is $25.2 billion. We’ve divided that by the number of people online in the U.S. according to Comscore (191 million), to get an average Internet spend per person of $132. View the raw data and calculations here.
The U.S., by the way, is only the 4th most valuable market per Internet user, trailing The UK ($213), Australia ($148) and Denmark ($144).
Social network Friendster has over 30 million monthly visitors worldwide, says Comscore. The problem (or perhaps the opportunity) is that just 1.7 million of those visitors are in the U.S. The vast majority, nearly 28 million, are in the Asia/Pacific region.
The company’s new CEO, Richard Kimber, is based in Sydney Australia. Friendster’s old San Francisco headquarters have been relocated as well, and the company now has a small Mountain View office for U.S. employees. Today the company announced that they’ve opened new offices in Singapore and Sydney. They have existing offices in the Philippines. A majority of the company’s employees are now in the Asia Pacific region, and at least 85% of new hires going forward will be based there.
There is a terrific monetization opportunity in the region over the long haul, but the company must be hurting for revenue today. Ad rates aren’t anywhere near comparable to the U.S. and Europe. Luckily the company has a fresh $20 million venture round to see it through. → Read More
What were the top social media sites of 2008? ComScore came out with its worldwide traffic stats for November a few days ago (so these don’t include December). They are a mix of social networks and blogging platforms. Blogger, the orange line in the chart above, still rules the roost with an estimated 222 million unique worldwide visitors in November (up 44 percent from November, 2007). Facebook, the blue line, is on pace to pass it soon with 200 million unique visitors (up 116 percent). (Note, though, that this is more than the 140 million active users Facebook itself reports—go figure). MySpace is pretty steady at 126 million uniques. Wordpress is a close fourth and gaining with 114 million (up 68 percent). And Windows Live Spaces is down 22 percent to 87 million uniques.
ComScore keeps a list of what it calls “social networking” sites, but these include blogging platforms and other social media sites as well. While the audience for blogs is still showing healthy growth overall, Facebook stands out as the social gorilla taking share from not only other social networks but blogs and other social media as well. Below are the top 20 sites on comScore’s social networking list. → Read More
These social networks sure do like Google execs. Facebook hired Sheryl Sandberg, Google’s VP Global Online Sales And Operations, in March 2008. Bebo hired away Joanna Shields as President – previously she was Google’s Managing Director for Google Europe, Russia, Middle East & Africa. Now Friendster. They’ve hired Richard Kimber, who was Google’s Managing Director of Sales and Operations for South East Asia and had over 1,000 people in his organization, to take over as the new CEO. Previous CEO Kent Lindstrom will become SVP Corporate Development, says the WSJ. And the company has also raised a new $20 million round of financing led by IDG Ventures. The company has now raised $45 million. The Friendster story is long and mostly sad. The company was founded in 2002 and owned the social networking world five years ago. They turned down a $30 million offer from Google in 2003 because they thought their destiny was something greater (that stock would be worth many times that amount based on Google’s stock price today). Instead of selling to Google, founder Jonathan Abrams raised venture capital. Friendster eventually raised money from Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers, Benchmark Capital and Battery Ventures. Some of the most successful and well known venture capitalists in silicon valley joined Friendster’s board of directors. After a failure to sell the company in late 2005, they recapitalized the company and Kent Lindstrom, one of the founders of Friendster, took over as President. By our calculations Friendster is the worlds 16th most valuable social network today, although it is the 9th most trafficked website. CrunchBase Information Richard Kimber Friendster Information provided by CrunchBase → Read More
Is MySpace worth $3 billion, or $20 billion? It depends on how you value a user. It’s time to start comparing the big global social networks on something other than unique visitors and page views. I believe an effective way to value a particular user is based on the average Internet advertising spend per person in the country they live in. The higher the spend, the more value the social network can get out of the user by serving them advertising and other products. That means that, for now, users in a handful of key countries are worth far more in terms of revenue potential than those in the rest of the world. We’ve begun to build out a model that looks at social network usage by country/region and compares that to available data on total Internet advertising spend in each of those countries. The model is then able to turn an apples-to-oranges comparison into an apples-to-apples comparison. The early results are surprising. The ultimate financial value of any asset is, ultimately, what the market will pay for it. We have only a few data points to help us: Facebook, Bebo and LinkedIn are worth $15 billion, $850 million and $1 billion, respectively, based on relatively recent valuations (although only Bebo was actually sold completely; Facebook and LinkedIn raised investments at those valuations). The last valuation of MySpace was just $580 million, back in 2005 when it was acquired by News Corp. Which valuation is most “correct?” It’s hard to say based on the data that’s been available to date, which is mostly just aggregate page view and unique visitor numbers from Comscore and other services. Based on worldwide unique visitors, for example, Facebook recently overtook MySpace to become the “largest” social network. According to raw worldwide user number, the biggest social networks are Facebook, Myspace, Hi5, Friendster, Orkut and Bebo, in that order. But when you apply the model that we’ve created below, which takes into account where users live, the rankings change substantially. MySpace is by far the most valuable social network based on available data. A competitor like Orkut is worth only 1/20th of MySpace, even though it has nearly 1/4 the number of users. Properly Ranking Social Networks Our model takes Comscore data for available countries and regions. We’ve graphed each of 26 well known social networks with the data we have been able to collect. → Read More
In April, Facebook caught up to MySpace in worldwide unique visitors (actually nudging past it with 116.4 million unique visitors versus 115.7 million for MySpace). Now the worldwide comScore numbers are out for May and Facebook continues to blow past MySpace with 123.9 million uniques (up 6 percent), versus 114.6 million for MySpace (down 1 percent). Facebook also boasted more pageviews worldwide (50.7 billion versus 45.4 billion). Maybe MySpace’s redesign which just went live this week will pick things up for them again. In the U.S., though, which is the biggest advertising market, MySpace is still well ahead of Facebook, with 73.7 million unique visitors in May compared to 35.6 million for Facebook. And that number for MySpace is up 2 percent from April, whereas Facebook’s had 0 percent growth. So it remains to be seen if and how fast Facebook can catch up in the U.S. As for the second-tier social networks, they have fewer than half as many visitors. Here is the breakdown for May: Worldwide Unique Visitors To the Top Social Networks Facebook—123.9 million MySpace—114.6 million Hi5—49.6 million Friendster—38.1 million Orkut—32.2 million Bebo—25.1 million → Read More
If you try to buy an ad on Facebook, there are certain words that are taboo. Any ads that contain four-letter words are automatically blocked. So too are ads with the names of competing social networks “MySpace,” “Friendster,” “Hi5,” , or “Orkut.” (Curiously, “Bebo” and “OpenSocial” go through just fine, as does “Microsoft,” “Yahoo,” “Google,” and “AOL”). Okay, so Facebook doesn’t want to run ads for some of its competitors. But why is 3Jam blocked? The startup offers an SMS service that lets people send multiple text messages at once, and it even has a Facebook app that does the same thing. CEO Andy Jagoe was befuddled when he tried to create a Facebook ad to test a new product, only to find out that the term “3Jam” was also blocked. (The product actually sounds pretty cool: it will be a way to send and receive text messages for free while you are online, and then route them to your phone when you are offline). Says Jagoe: It seems crazy to think that they consider us competitive. This is kind of weird. It is like censorship. It does seem weird. What other startup names or products are blocked by Facebook? CrunchBase Information 3Jam Facebook Information provided by CrunchBase → Read More
In the global race to be the top social network, MySpace and Facebook are neck and neck. In January, 2008, MySpace was still the biggest social network worldwide with 109 million unique visitors, according to comScore. But Facebook was close on its heels with 101 million. (Meanwhile, the data in the U.S. for Facebook at least shows a possible slowdown in growth). While MySpace and Facebook are fighting it out for the top spot, back in the second pack some interesting sprints and scuffles are going on that are worth keeping an eye on. Everyone in that second pack (Hi5, Freindster, Orkut, Bebo, Imeem) are about a third to a quarter the size of the leaders in terms of worldwide unique visitors, so I’ve isolated their performance in the chart above (it is harder to see if you include Nos. 1 and 2, MySpace and Facebook). In January, both Hi5 (No. 3, in red) and Friendster (No. 4, in blue), made moves to pull away from Google’s Orkut (No. 5, in green) and Bebo (No. 6, in yellow). The latter two maintained a more steady pace. Coming on strong from behind is Imeem (No. 7, in purple), which surpassed Multiply (No. 8, not shown). The chart below has most of the stats, except for the last two—Imeem had 17.8 million global visitors in January, 2008, a 477 percent annual growth rate (Multiply had 17.6 million, a healthy 203 percent rise from the year before). For Hi5 and Friendster, global growth is a major part of their game plan. Friendster, for instance, which dropped off the radar for most of us in the U.S., is now the single largest social network in Asia. It’s top five countries are the Philippines, Indonesia, Malaysia, the United States (legacy members who never left, plus new growth among Asians here), and Singapore. Friendster has kept its growth going by launching fan profile pages for Asian pop singers, launching four new languages since September (Chinese, Japanese, Korean, and Spanish), and letting developers create apps for its site. So does that mean that Friendster and Hi5 are worth more than the $1 billion Bebo is rumored to have sold itself for? Not necessarily. It depends on the actual composition of their members, click-through rates, and other financial factors. Generally speaking, advertisers like to target their campaigns by geography, and pay less for ads that target populations with → Read More
