Friendster’s Identity Search

June 13, 2005 — When Taek Kwon (formerly City Search) takes the reins today as CEO of Friendster, he'll have his work cut out for him.  The social networking Web site was a media industry darling, while being named one of Time magazine's 50 Coolest Web sites in 2004.  "Friendster used to be the only game in town, and a lot of people copied off of that success," Kwon said. "The landscape now is that there are a lot more options, which has really changed the competitive landscape."  Friendster now boasts 16 million users. "There was a lot of investment into this segment that was eerily similar to the late '90s boom. They figured, 'We'll get a big audience and then figure out how to make money later,'" said David Card, media analyst with Jupiter Research. "But they might be realizing that just signing up users is useless."  Says Kwon, "when Friendster launched it wasn't really so much of a service as it was a platform. Now some of the other players have really taken that platform in some different directions, some interesting directions."  The evolution into topic-specific destinations left some Friendster subscribers, and possibly Friendster management, wondering: What, exactly, does Friendster do to differentiate itself?  The company is non-committal on the exact direction that will lead Friendster to big profits, or the exact group to target. Kwon listed music, education and business networking as proven themes for drawing in an audience, and noted that in the future music and video services might be a way to offer users more options. "We haven't formally made a bet on any of these strategies, but we know that's a decision that needs to be made in short order," Kwon said. FULL ARTICLE @ ABCNEWS

Mark Brooks: Some critical decisions ahead.  I'd like to see an introduction of evite-esque functionality to Friendster.  That's the direction I was working in with Jonathan in 2003.