Mark Brooks: New CEO Taek Kwon is shaking Friendster up and adding lots of fun new features at a frenetic pace. If only he was on board a year earlier. Still, I really hope Friendster sees a resurgence. Myspace has stolen Friendster’s thunder, but Friendster is no small fry.
CNET — Aug 19 — A new application powered by Google Maps and a personals Web site just might offer a satisfying alternative. Dubbed "HotMaps," it allows users to roughly pinpoint where a subscriber of HotOrNot lives. Once a specific location on the HotMaps Web site is selected, a list of markers will appear. These signposts will then denote where subscribers to the dating site live. Created by Frozenbear.
The full article was originally published at News.com, but is no longer available.
CNET — June 17 — Audioscrobbler.com is an online social network that rolls the concepts of Friendster and iTunes into one. It uses a plug-in to track what songs a user is listening to. So users can check to see what your friends have listened to most, ranked by most recently played, most-played artists and most-played tracks. FULL ARTICE AT NEWS.com
CNET — Mar 16 — NBC's remake of the cult hit British TV show "The Office" is getting an unusual advance airing Wednesday night online, courtesy of MySpace.com. The early look at the show is a plum for the young social networking site, which has captured much of the initial buzz around Friendster and other rivals with its focus on music and other entertainment communities.
The full article was originally published at CNet, but is no longer available.
Mark Brooks: MySpace is great territory for seeding viral campaigns. Friendster should have had owned this territory. Now they are playing second fiddle to MySpace.
CNET — Mar 3 — Friendster earned some notoriety for firing a blogger…and is now bringing bloggers into the fold–and hoping to collect fees in the process. Friendster launched a beta of Friendster Blogs. The underlying technology is provided by Six Apart (TypePad). The default option is $4.95 per month.
The full article was originally published at CNet, but is no longer available.
Mark Brooks: Finally, some meat on the bone. This should help Friendster recover some lost ground from MySpace. OnlinePersonalsWatch is built on TypePad btw.
CNET — Feb 28 — Business social networking site LinkedIn (2 million members) will soon begin charging employers $95 per job listing, nudging social networking into the uncertain terrain of paid services. LinkedIn has 300,000 job listings and expects to top 1 million by summer. Users will be able to see which of their contacts knows someone who's hiring. The Palo Alto company scored $10 million Series B funding round (Greylock) in October, and $4.7 million (Sequoia) in November 2003.
The full article was originally published at CNet, but is no longer available.
Mark Brooks: OPW covers 'online personals' which includes internet dating, social networking and business social networking.