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?
I am blown away at that many page views for MySpace.com - out-Friendstered? It looks like Friendster has a small gang with knives compared to MySpaces' Well Armed Forces! 2 BBBbbbillion - Unreal!
Posted by: Michael | Mar 01, 2005 at 02:11 PM
So, who audited MySpace's page views? ;-)
As for what's up Scott Sassa's sleeve: nothing. Yet another clueless entertainment exec recruited by an irrationally exuberant board. Seriously; word from the inside is this guy's a complete tool; knows NOTHING relevant, and is driving the company straight into the ground. Maybe he's trying to read the APAC market -- the long way.
John Doerr should know better by now. Expect him to pull the plug fairly soon.
Private labeling Typepad ain't gonng make this dog hunt.
Posted by: carl | Mar 17, 2005 at 06:30 PM
Friendster attracted the wrong ad demographic - mostly asian teenagers, which caused their eventual demise, meanwhile Myspace got the most US users of any social network. However, even Google is having problems monitizing myspace with Adsense. The best advertising solutio has yet to be invented for social networks like Myspace and friendster.
Posted by: Friendster Layouts | Oct 15, 2008 at 03:10 PM