Remember the days of Friendster where you’ll spend hours stalking what your friends do and leave testimonials behind on their wall? Well, the social network site has revamped and transformed into a full fledged social discovery & gaming platform which serves the online gaming needs focusing their force in South East Asia.
Recently, I had the chance to attend the press conference on the Relaunch of Friendster where they re-introduced themselves with a refreshing new look putting more fun factors to it. The redesign came in after MOL Global made an acquisition of 100% of Friendster Inc. back in 2010. Utilizing the huge fan base of more than 115 million members worldwide, MOL Global combined the database of Friendster with the content and monetization capability of Money Online.
In the press conference itself, MOL proudly presents Friendster as a network focused on connecting smiles through online & offline activities/interests. Mr. Ganesh kumar Bangah, Group CEO of MOL Global & Mr. Nikolai Galicia, CEO of Friendster Inc both showed us the potential of the all-new Friendster, the services offered as well as their aim with the collaboration.
Friendster’s Products
Friendster – Living the Game
Friendster is the pioneer online social network with more than 100 million registered members.
Friendster is one of the best sites that allows people to create avatars, discover new worlds, enjoy
games and meet new people. Friendster prides itself in delivering an easy-to-use, friendly and
interactive environment where users can easily connect with others via www.friendster.com.
Friendster hotspots
Friendster Hotspots is currently available in popular branded food & beverage outlets such as
Starbucks, Old Town White Coffee, Kenny Rogers Roasters, Wendy’s, Krispy Kreme and Papa
John’s. Nationwide, there are currently over 350 retail outlets using Friendster Hotspots with an
average of 1.5 million unique users a month. 70% of Friendster Hotspots users are mobile users.
Friendster iCafe
The Friendster iCafe, cybercafé management software features a system that manages time
usage of computers, customers, game consoles, billing, security features and accounting
facilities has already been used by over 400 cybercafé owners locally with over 150 million
video and banner ads displayed monthly. Friendster is aiming to achieve over 1000 cybercafes
with plans to expand both Friendster Hotspots and Friendster iCafe services to the Philippines,
Thailand, Indonesia and India by end of 2012.
One of the main thing Friendster has to offer is they have a Developers Programme to encourage content developers to commercialise their games via Friendster.
During the event itself, I actually went and use one of the laptop available there to access Friendster and tried playing one of the game available on the platform. I played this game named Crystal Legacy which is pretty similar to Ragnarok (A popular MMORPG game a few years back) and I must say that the interface is pretty nice and it surely appeals to the younger generation nowadays who have part of the attention focused on online gaming.
For your information, Friendster currently has 56 massively multi-player online and social games on the platform and allows developers to monetize their game using Friendster Coins which is powered by MOL’s payment platform.
Facts on MOL
One of the biggest online payment service providers in Asia with an annual revenue of over USD150Million(2011). Money Online today has over 600,000 physical payment channels across 75 countries worldwide and handles over 5,000,000 transactions a month.
Personal view : There’s a huge potential in the collaboration between MOL & Friendster. Looking at the current trend at more users embracing online gaming into their social lives daily, this might just add in some spice to your everyday stress.
why no intro on the girl in blue at all? you feature her quite a lot in the post what..
She’s Yvonne Lee =)
I visit it due to this question, and the slogan now is “social gaming destination” Hmm.. things changed!
yeaaaaa