Chris Leong

Friendster is now Malaysian. Malaysia’s MOL has just bought Friendster a couple of weeks back for an undisclosed sum. It was rumored to be at the region of USD 26 million, a large sum of money considering the fact that they have been losing share and mindshare to Facebook. While I am happy that Malaysia finally have a global Web 2.0 company, I am skeptical on how Friendster can stay relevant in the Social Media sphere with the Goliath Facebook gaining market share day by day.

That skepticism was magnified when I tried looking for some books about Friendster in Amazon. The top 2 books that I found are Woman Loving Woman and Threesomes, Friendster has lost so much mindshare that it is even not featured in Amazon’s search engine . Not even one Friendster book is featured in the first 3 pages!

I hope Friendster’s 3 prong strategy on Microtransaction, Music and Social Gaming works. Or else, it will be a very expensive lesson for MOL.

All the best Friendster!! I agree with GreyReview, you need a fair dose of luck, lots of it!

Updated: In a different post, I mentioned that  Friendster is better off with MOL than on its own. Berjaya offer so much more value for Friendster to make money. I’m still skeptical, but I will be very happy if MOL can turn around Friendster. It will definitely improve Malaysia’s brand..