Friendster
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
| Friendster, Inc. | |
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| Type | |
| Founded | 2002 |
| Headquarters | San Francisco, California,  United States |
| Key people | Friendster Team |
| Employees | 57 |
| Website | http://www.friendster.com |
| Type of site | Social network service |
| Advertising | Google, AdSense |
| Registration | optional |
| Available in | multilingual |
| Launched | March 22, 2002 |
| Current status | active |
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Friendster is an Internet social network service. The Friendster site was founded in Mountain View, California, United States by Jonathan Abrams in March 2002[1] and is privately owned. Friendster is based on the Circle of Friends and Web of Friends techniques for networking individuals in virtual communities and demonstrates the small world phenomenon. It currently has over 50 million users[2] and is mostly used in Asia [3][4].
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[edit] History
Google offered $30 million to buy Friendster in 2003, however, Friendster, refused it.
Friendster was funded by Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers and Benchmark Capital in October 2003 with a reported valuation of $53 million.
In April 2004, Abrams was removed as Chief Executive Officer and Tim Koogle took over as interim CEO. Koogle previously served as President and CEO at Yahoo!. Koogle was replaced by Scott Sassa in June 2004. Sassa left in May 2005 and was replaced by Taek Kwon. Taek Kwon was succeeded by Kent Lindstrom. Friendster is now valued at less than one-twentieth its valuation in 2003.
[edit] Patent
Based on a June 16, 2003 application, Friendster was awarded a patent in 2006 for a method and apparatus for calculating, displaying and acting upon relationships in a social network. Dubbed the Web of Friends because the method combines the Circle of Friends with the Web of Contacts, the system collects descriptive data about various individuals and allows those individuals to indicate other individuals with whom they have a personal relationship. The descriptive data and the relationship data are integrated and processed to reveal the series of social relationships connecting any two individuals within a social network. The pathways connecting any two individuals can be displayed. Further, the social network itself can be displayed to any number of degrees of separation. A user of the system can determine the optimal relationship path (i.e., contact pathway) to reach desired individuals. A communications tool allows individuals in the system to be introduced (or introduce themselves) and initiate direct communication.
[edit] In other languages
Friendster's Traditional Chinese, Simplified Chinese, Japanese, Korean, Spanish, Indonesian, Vietnamese and Malay site exists as part of its main friendster.com URL. A link in the upper right corner toggles you between English, Traditional Chinese, Simplified Chinese, Korean, Spanish, Vietnamese, Indonesian or Malay.[5]
