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After Funding Round, Friendster Focus Goes Global

Somehow, someway, Friendster, the Web's one-time dominant social network, has secured additional funding to keep it going. Three years ago, Friendster was at the forefront of the exciting new online revolution in networking, and now it ranks 34th among social networks, according to traffic measurement firm Hitwise. It has been succeeded by MySpace, the undisputed leader in the space; Facebook, the yearbook-like high school and college social network; and London-based Bebo. MySpace commands 51 percent of the traffic among social networks, according to Hitwise, 10 times more than No. 2-ranked Facebook, which has recorded 4.7 percent of recent visits to social networks. Friendster? Well, it recorded just 0.24 percent of visits to social networking sites--13 times less than MySpace. Is $10 million enough to turn things around? DAG Ventures, Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers, and Benchmark Capital, the investors in this latest round of funding, believe Friendster can mine the international market. Roughly 40 percent of its 8 million to 9 million users come from English-speaking Asia, such as Indonesia, the Philippines and Singapore. Another 25 percent comes from Mexico, Britain or France. President Kent Lindstrom sees Friendster as more of a social complement to the Palo Alto-based business professional network LinkedIn.

Read the whole story at Reuters.com »

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