Asia's Answer to Myspace - Friendster
Monday, March 19, 2007
I'm sure most if not everyone (my total readership of 5) who reads this knows what Friendster is about. For those who doesn't, it's something like MySpace. It's a place where you "connect" to your friends and make new friends. I think they call it a.. social networking site.. or something like that.
I'm also quite sure that a lot of you have heard that MySpace is making quite a huge wave in the marketing/advertising world. Everyone wants to jump on the bandwagon and create a profile for themselves on it.. from everyday Joes to celebrity wannabes like Kevin Federline; and the advertisers are lapping it up. In very much the same essence, Friendster is a site that has taken the world (at least this part of the world) by storm. I'm actually quite surprised that it has taken Jeff Roberto (marketing and PR director for Friendster) so long to pursue advertisers. [Read the article HERE.]
It would be interesting to see which advertisers jump on board and at the same time, remain relevant to the users. From the sheer numbers alone (Friendster has over 40 million users), your advertised product is bound to be seen by someone, the question is, is it to those that want to see it? I'm not sure how MySpace is doing it, but since Google has already jumped in, I think it's safe to assume that more likely than not, it's going to be contextual advertising.. but of course, we know how horribly wrong that could turn out.
To quote a friend, "using a bazooka to kill a mosquito" could get you what you want, but you also get a lot of unwanted attention. Let's wait and see how this works. What do you guys think? Is it going to work? Is Friendster going to be as "big" as MySpace?
Oh, and to prove that they are probably doing the right thing, I DO have a friendster account. Heh.
I'm also quite sure that a lot of you have heard that MySpace is making quite a huge wave in the marketing/advertising world. Everyone wants to jump on the bandwagon and create a profile for themselves on it.. from everyday Joes to celebrity wannabes like Kevin Federline; and the advertisers are lapping it up. In very much the same essence, Friendster is a site that has taken the world (at least this part of the world) by storm. I'm actually quite surprised that it has taken Jeff Roberto (marketing and PR director for Friendster) so long to pursue advertisers. [Read the article HERE.]
It would be interesting to see which advertisers jump on board and at the same time, remain relevant to the users. From the sheer numbers alone (Friendster has over 40 million users), your advertised product is bound to be seen by someone, the question is, is it to those that want to see it? I'm not sure how MySpace is doing it, but since Google has already jumped in, I think it's safe to assume that more likely than not, it's going to be contextual advertising.. but of course, we know how horribly wrong that could turn out.
To quote a friend, "using a bazooka to kill a mosquito" could get you what you want, but you also get a lot of unwanted attention. Let's wait and see how this works. What do you guys think? Is it going to work? Is Friendster going to be as "big" as MySpace?
Oh, and to prove that they are probably doing the right thing, I DO have a friendster account. Heh.
