Friendster

An article in the New York Times on Friendster and its failure as a business contains this little titbit:
Orkut began as a plaything for Silicon Valley's digerati but, oddly enough, has morphed into a site where the primary language is Portuguese. Nearly two in three registered Orkut users hail from Brazil; Americans account for only one in 11 registered users. Similarly, Friendster is wildly popular among 18 to 21 years olds living in Indonesia, Singapore, Malaysia and the Philippines, who account for a huge portion of Friendster's most active users.
I guess even the virtual nature of the Internet can't stop friendships from being primarily local. Of course, if you're one of those who believe in communal bonding via pain (a la school hazing traditions), you can always get together to play Shocking Roulette.

Comments

Ernesto said…
Considering that I'm rather private about my "connections" to my friends, the "Friendster" concept never quite caught my attention. It does make sense to me about that 18-21 year old demographic seem to take it on more freely than my demographic (let's not go there now ;).

I would like to see how this further impact other "social" network building systems.
25 January 2005 at 10:59
Daryl said…
Friendster isn't a tool for deep links I feel but shallow links - if you're already close to someone you won't need Friendster, but it's good for finding out how long-lost acquaintances and schoolmates are doing.
27 January 2005 at 13:07
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