ABS-CBN NEWS -- Feb 22 -- Friendster endured three CEO's during 2004 and has seen a spate of senior executives depart in recent weeks. New CEO Scott Sassa "has figured out how to make a business of this," said John Doerr (VC Google, Amazon). Doerr said they would announce a partnership deal in February and "reach profitability within the next 90 days." Friendster has 16 million registered users, MySpace has 7.6 million. 5x people visited MySpace as Friendster in December and they spent far more time there (Friendster - 17 mins, MySpace - 78 mins) according to Nielsen/NetRatings. According to MediaMetrix, MySpace logged 2 billion+ page views last month compared to 152 million page views at Friendster. "Unique visitors and page views drive revenues, not registered users," said MySpace CEO Chris DeWolfe. MySpace now hosts sites for 110,000 musicians. Users IM, play games, contribute to blogs or browse events. Geoffrey Yang, VC with Redpoint Ventures, said he is days away from investing in MySpace; "these guys in a sense are trying to be an MTV for the Internet." Marissa Mayer, who manages Orkut, acknowledged that it and Friendster have "similar capabilities and similar limitations."
Mark Brooks: Friendster has been out-Friendstered. What has Scott Sassa got up his sleeve? Your comments please?
