Friendster PVs Skyrocket 41% in May
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Written By Drupad Sil | June 26, 2007 | Share This
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While the names MySpace and Facebook are synonymous with social media and Web 2.0, former industry leader Friendster posted an astonishing 41% page view growth rate from April to May, placing it fourth overall in audience over the past year, just behind Hi5.com.
As reported by Venturebeat.com, Friendster had 24.7 million unique users in May while the site’s page views grew to 9 billion. Not bad, especially for a site that plummeted in popularity three years ago. Despite being the top online social network from 2002 to 2004, Friendster was overtaken by MySpace in April of that year due to several factors, including slow page load times, banning of “fake” profiles, and a lack of cohesive management and direction due to numerous changes in leadership. The site’s decision to not sell to Google in 2003 is also oft-cited as not only a cause of decline, but as one of Silicon Valley’s biggest blunders.
So how does Friendster explain their sudden growth in popularity? The site’s most notable feature, the Web of Friends, allows users to view contacts through multiple degrees of separation, and make introductions based on mutual acquaintances through the network. In the past, the sheer number of possible interactions created too many variables to track; however, Friendster now boasts the ability to manage four quadrillion configurations. It also uses more tried-and-true methods, allowing users to send invites to friends who aren’t in the network, driving up page views.
Moreover, the fact that Friendster’s growth has come in spite of, rather than at a cost to, MySpace and Facebook’s audience sizes has raised some interesting questions. Duncan Riley over at TechCrunch.com outlines it nicely:
“Prevailing theory relating to the growth of social networking sites suggests that social network popularity is a one or the other proposition in a finite marketplace. In others words users will abandon MySpace or Friendster when they begin using Facebook, and that the number of overall users isn’t growing. The growth rates from both MySpace and Friendster at the same time as Facebook is booming would suggest that the theory is wrong.”
Friendster’s popularity in South East Asia, most notably in the Philippines, points to its ability to attract a global audience. With America’s potential market share of the global social media audience a mere 4.53%, it’s a safe bet that last month’s numbers won’t be a fluke.
Topics: Social Media |