Tech & Biz

Is Spam the Future for Friendster?

by Jordan Yerman | September 27, 2007 at 10:08 am

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Onetime social-networking leader Friendster has announced a new feature called "Fan Profiles," which is essentially a way for celebrities, bands, companies, nonprofit organizations and other entities to self-promote.

Among "early adopters" of the new feature are Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton, comedian Dane Cook, and pop-punk band Fall Out Boy, all of which now have "fan profiles" on the social network.

The formal announcement was made at a press lunch at the DigitalLife consumer technology trade show in New York on Thursday.

It's an ambitious move for the struggling social network, but one that likely won't give it more traction in its struggle to reclaim the market share it's lost to Facebook and MySpace.com. Friendster, it should be noted, claims to have a solid footprint in the Asia-Pacific region (35 million of its 50 million users are based there), which led the company to introduce a Chinese version of the site earlier this week.

The article goes on to state that the new Friendster profile will have extended bulk-email tools... yeah, that's kinda like spam. If I got an email every time one of my contacts changed their profile in any way, well, I'd be getting a lot of email! I mean, it's one way to differentiate yourself from the rest of the social-networking field, but not necessarily the best way.