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Friendster was a social gaming site based in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia. It was previously a social networking service website.〔Eric Eldon, August 4, 2008. "(Friendster raises $20 million, nabs a Googler to be CEO )" VentureBeat. Retrieved December 4, 2008.〕〔Gary Rivlin, October 15, 2006. "(Wallflower at the Web Party )." New York Times. Retrieved December 4, 2008.〕 Before Friendster was redesigned, the service allowed users to contact other members, maintain those contacts, and share online content and media with those contacts.〔(Friendster at a Glance document )〕 The website was also used for dating and discovering new events, bands and hobbies. Users could share videos, photos, messages and comments with other members via profiles and networks.〔 It is considered one of the original and even the "grandfather" of social networks. After the relaunch of Friendster as a social gaming platform in June 2011, the number of registered users reached over 115 million. The company operated mainly from three Asian countries: the Philippines, Malaysia and Singapore, and over 90% of the site's traffic came from Asia. As of 2008, Friendster had more monthly unique visitors than any other social network in Asia.〔ComScore Press Release, June 30, 2008. "(India and China Propel Internet Audience Growth in Asia-Pacific Region, According to comScore )", Press Release. Retrieved October 27, 2008.〕〔Ling Woo Liu, January 29, 2008. "(Friendster Moves to Asia )", TIME. Retrieved October 27, 2008.〕〔(【引用サイトリンク】publisher=http://how-to-become-an-entrepreneur.blogspot.com/ )〕〔Press Release, October 21, 2008. "(Friendster is the #1 Social Network for Adults and Youth in Singapore )", Press Release. Retrieved October 27, 2008.〕 The top 10 countries accessing Friendster, according to Alexa, as of May 7, 2009 were the Philippines, Indonesia, Malaysia, Singapore, Thailand, Pakistan, United Arab Emirates, Sudan, South Korea, Bangladesh and India. Friendster remained notably popular in Indonesia through 2012. On June 14, 2015 Friendster, citing "...the evolving landscape in our challenging industry" and lack of engagement by the online community, suspended their services.〔http://www.friendster.com/〕 ==History== Friendster was founded by Canadian computer programmer Jonathan Abrams in 2002, before the wider adoption of MySpace (2003), Hi5 (2003), Facebook (2004) and other social networking sites.〔Betsy Schiffman, May 9, 2008. "(In Praise of Friendster )", Wired. Retrieved October 27, 2008.〕 Friendster was one of the first of these sites to attain over 1 million members, although it was preceded by several other smaller social networking sites such as SixDegrees.com (1997). The name Friendster is a portmanteau of "friend" and Napster. Napster at the time was a controversial peer-to-peer file sharing Internet service that was launched in 1999; by 2000, "Napster" was practically a household name, thanks to several high-profile lawsuits filed against it that year. The original Friendster site was founded in Mountain View, California and was privately owned. Friendster was based on the "Circle of Friends" social network technique for networking individuals in virtual communities and demonstrates the small world phenomenon. Friendster was considered the top online social network service until around April 2004 when it was overtaken by MySpace in terms of page views, according to Nielsen//NetRatings. Friendster.com went live in 2002 and was adopted by 3 million users within the first few months.〔 Publications including ''Time'', ''Esquire'', ''Vanity Fair'', ''Entertainment Weekly'', ''US Weekly'' and ''Spin'' wrote about Friendster's success and the founder appeared on magazine covers and late-night talk shows.〔 Friendster's rapid success inspired a generation of niche social networking websites including Dogster and Elfster.〔Pete Cashmore, September 14, 2006. "(Dogster’s Friendster for Dogs Raises $1M )", Mashable.〕〔Liane Cassavoy, Monday, November 22, 2004. "(Secret Santa Gift Swap Goes High Tech )", Today @ PC World. 〕 Friendster had also received competition from all-in-one sites such as Windows Live Spaces, Yahoo! 360, and Facebook. Google offered $30 million to buy out Friendster in 2003, but the offer was turned down. Friendster was then funded by Kleiner, Perkins, Caufield & Byers and Benchmark Capital in October 2003 with a reported valuation of $53 million. Friendster's decision to stay private instead of selling to Google in 2003 is considered one of the biggest blunders of Silicon Valley, the Associated Press claims. In April 2004, John Abrams was removed as CEO and Tim Koogle took over as interim CEO. Koogle previously served as president and CEO at Yahoo!. Koogle was later replaced by Scott Sassa in June 2004. Sassa left in May 2005 and was replaced by Taek Kwon. Taek Kwon was then succeeded by Kent Lindstrom, following a recapitalization by Kleiner and Benchmark that valued Friendster at less than 5% of its 2003 valuation. In 2008 Friendster had a membership base of more than 115 million registered users and continued to grow in Asia.〔Press Release, October 21, 2008. "(Friendster is the #1 Social Network for Adults and Youth in Malaysia )", Press Release. Retrieved October 27, 2008. 〕〔〔 According to Alexa, the site has suffered an exponential decline in traffic in America since 2009. From a peak 40 ranking it reached 800 in November 2010. Most people have since attributed this decline to the rise of Facebook, a rival social networking site. In August 2008, Friendster hired ex-Google executive Richard Kimber as the CEO.〔Press Release, August 18, 2008. "(Friendster Deploys OpenSocial Support for Benefit of 75 Million Users, Developers and Industry )", Press Release. Retrieved October 27, 2008.〕〔Press Release, August 5, 2008. "(Friendster Announces New CEO And $20 Million in Funding )", Press Release. Retrieved October 27, 2008.〕〔Heather Havenstein, October 28, 2008. "(Friendster Opens Platform to Developers )", PC World. Retrieved October 27, 2008.〕 Kimber focused on Friendster's expansion in Asia.〔Jessica Vascellaro, August 5, 2008. "(New Friendster CEO Has Asia Focus )", The Wall Street Journal. Retrieved October 27, 2008.〕 On December 9, 2009, it was announced that Friendster was acquired for $26.4 million by MOL Global, one of Asia's biggest Internet companies. MOL Global is funded by one of Malaysia's successful businessmen, Tan Sri Vincent Tan, chairman and chief executive of Berjaya Corporation Berhad. In June 2011, the company repositioned itself as a social gaming site and discontinued user social network accounts, but Friendster accounts have not been deleted and users can still log in using their existing passwords. Users' contact lists will be preserved, along with basic information. Friendster said that the focus would now be on pure "entertainment and fun", and the aim is not to compete with Facebook, but rather to complement it. On June 14, 2015, The site and all its services were shut down indefinitely.〔http://www.friendster.com/〕 抄文引用元・出典: フリー百科事典『 ウィキペディア（Wikipedia）』 ■ウィキペディアで「Friendster」の詳細全文を読む スポンサード リンク
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