Friendster's Identity Search

Filed in archive Dating Sites on June 17, 2005

June
13, 2005 --- When Taek Kwon (formerly City Search) takes the reins today
as CEO of Friendster, he'll have his work cut out for him. The
social networking Web site was a media industry darling, while being
named one of Time magazine's 50 Coolest Web sites in 2004.
"Friendster used to be the only game in town, and a lot of people
copied off of that success," Kwon said. "The landscape now is that
there are a lot more options, which has really changed the competitive
landscape." Friendster now boasts 16 million users. "There was a
lot of investment into this segment that was eerily similar to the late
'90s boom. They figured, 'We'll get a big audience and then figure out
how to make money later,'" said David Card,
media analyst with Jupiter Research. "But they might be realizing that
just signing up users is useless." Says Kwon, "when Friendster
launched it wasn't really so much of a service as it was a platform.
Now some of the other players have really taken that platform in some
different directions, some interesting directions." The evolution
into topic-specific destinations left some Friendster subscribers, and
possibly Friendster management, wondering: What, exactly, does
Friendster do to differentiate itself? The company is
non-committal on the exact direction that will lead Friendster to big
profits, or the exact group to target. Kwon listed music, education and
business networking as proven themes for drawing in an audience, and
noted that in the future music and video services might be a way to
offer users more options. "We haven't formally made a bet on any of
these strategies, but we know that's a decision that needs to be made
in short order," Kwon said. FULL ARTICLE @ ABCNEWS

Mark Brooks:
Some critical decisions ahead. I'd like to see an introduction of
evite-esque functionality to Friendster. That's the direction I
was working in with Jonathan in 2003. Picture