• Cnet, Thursday, November 10, 2005 12:55 PM

Friendster has been making enemies recently. According to a Cnet report, the social networking site sent out an e-mail blast to people who did not respond to a Friendster invite a year or more ago, asking them again to join but implying that the e-mails were coming from friends, when in fact, they came from the company. It is an irony indeed when a social networking site built on the premise of community and word of mouth compromises its own brand equity by pulling an amateur stunt like this. However, the underhanded move, which is not sitting well with bloggers who've called the stunt "spam," also underscores the intense competition in social networking. MySpace.com, for example, has grown 840 percent in the last year, and now has the marketing muscle of parent company News Corp. Ad spending on online community sites is up 300 percent this year, and if Friendster wants a piece of that action, it needs to figure out how to grow its user base without sending unsolicited e-mails.

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