Yesterday, MOL Global confirmed it was buying 100% of Friendster and that the deal would be finalised by year end.
In a statement, Friendster said this would effectively create "Asia’s largest end-to-end content, distribution and commerce network, pairing MOL’s off-line retail channel partners and payment platform with Friendster’s large online footprint, social network and user community in Asia".
"The merger with Friendster will continue to transform the social networking industry, combining a highly intuitive and successful social media site and online marketing channel with an integrated payment platform and content network which includes games, goods, gifts, music and video."
And so after the green-looking makeover, the 100 million dollar asian-trade rumor, all has been official now. Yes folks,Friendster has been sold with an estimated $110 million worth to Mol Global Company – A Malaysian paymentcompany that looks like a site which caters a ‘pay for play’ type of business-model. According to the blog excerpt of FS. FRIENDSTER LAUNCHES GLOBAL PARTNERSHIP WITH MOL ACCESSPORTAL BERHAD (MOL) TO POWER MICROPAYMENTS AND THE FRIENDSTER WALLET. “Through this strategic partnership, we’re enabling many users to pay for goods and services online, for the first time, and in doing so, creating a valuable transactional ecosystem on Friendster,” said Ganesh Kumar Bangah, president and chief executive officer at MOL. “We’re excited to extend our payments platform exponentially via this relationship, as both companies will benefit from the continuous loading and spending within the Friendster Wallet.” As part of the partnership, MOL will provide a variety of payment capabilities for Friendster users, including the virtual wallet, transaction management, pre-paid physical cards, support for multiplepayment methods, and fraud management. Some of the payment methods MOL supports are operated by MOL directly, and some are provided via integration with third-party providers, like PayPal. The MOL platform is used today on a variety of large scale web sites and supports payments for transactions surrounding goods, services, gifts, online games, premium content, and e-commerce for applicationsand 3rd party integrations. If you have been using friendster, you’ll notice that the developers are starting to inject games inside the mix, a good example will be ‘The Farm’. The said ‘waning’ social-networking site is also leaning to social-networking paymentsystem, their implementation of the Friendster Wallet just proves it – It’s a feature that will enable stored credit for each Friendster user in a currency called “Friendster Coins.” It can be spent throughout Friendster’s site for goods and services. The wallet will also include a non-monetary, marketing currency called “Friendster Chips”. Sounds like the Mol GLobal Company fusion with Friendster, was not so bad at all? Yes, we could say that. The only caveat here is, unlike in US and other european countries, Asians tends to be not so familiar with e-transaction; Would it be so wise if their strategy should include western countries? To at least expand their territories to another notch. Now that friendster finally have a ‘gift-horse’ on their back, trying to venture outside the box wouldn’t hurt, would it? Ah, seeing how this one plays out should be interesting yet still not promising.
Reference: http://pinoytutorial.com/techtorial/friendster-sold-mol-global-110-million-dollars/#
Before there was Twitter and Facebook — and even before there was MySpace, so we are talking internet aeons here — the original social network was Friendster, launched in March of 2003 to the tune of three million subscribers within months of its release. Today it claims 110 million members worldwide yet, despite that high figure, it seems Friendster disappeared as the now famous and highly embraced social networks improved upon its premise and they all gathered their own millions of subscribers across the world — that is, except for the Philippines, Indonesia and Malaysia and, to a smaller degree, Australia where Friendster remains relevant and with a devoted following. Last Friday, Friendster relaunched its web site with new features, a new look, designed by Sydney-based Yellow Studio, and a new tag line, "connecting smiles."
The old logo was as generic as possible, with a smiley face lacking any sort of personality and an unmemorable sans serif typeface. The new logo is, definitely, anything but generic and has reversed all identity traits from the original. Unfortunately not in a good way. The new logo is clearly an attempt to visualize the tag line, you know, by connecting and by having a smile at the end. It's also meant to be youthful and exuberant — and while I may be old and not exuberant — I know sloppiness when I see it and this is just all over the place with its wacky loops and uneven lines. It's a bad napkin sketch rendered in Illustrator. I like the idea of it, but the execution doesn't make me smile. In fact, the smile at the end is rather creepy and looks as if it has been drinking Red Bull all night long. The perfectly smooth cloud shape that holds the lettering is too smooth and doesn't relate visually or conceptually to anything.
The images above are from a launch party last week in Makati City, Philippines, showing a little more dynamism in the applications, even if it's all for flair. This is definitely a case of me not being the target audience at all, probably explaining my reaction against the logo, but so is My Little Pony and I could still appreciate what they did. Surely, I won't be making any new friendsters.
Thanks to Lester Nelson for first tip.
VIA http://collected.info/brandidentity
It was nice to get an email from Friendster today about their relaunch, detailed below. I wouldn't count them out. You never know who can make a comeback today. Just as it's easy for a site to come out of nowhere and dominate, it's equally possible that an existing player can find their footing again. Worth watching...
And if you're lucky, it will turn your life into a series of time lapse still photo cutout animation sequences. So is THIS how China takes over?
Remember Friendster? This dethroned champ of social networking hasn't had much traction in the U.S. for a while now — but it's still huge in Asia. Now get ready to see a lot more of Friendster in the near future: tomorrow the company launches its completely revamped site. See you there?
