What Happened to Social Network Friendster?

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FRIENDSTER WAS THE FIRST-EVER SOCIAL NETWORK.  IT ALLOWED YOU TO CONNECT WITH FRIENDS, JOIN GROUPS, SET UP YOUR OWN PROFILE, AND EVEN PLAY GAMES DIRECTLY ON THE PLATFORM. 

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Creator Jonathan Abrams started Friendster after his girlfriend broke up with him as a way to meet other women online.

PHOTOGRAPH BY DAVID PAUL MORRIS

The site launched in March 2003 and quickly attracted millions of users. Adams’ antics, which entailed frequent partying, got him fired from the business a year later.

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Friendster was sold to Malaysia-based MOL Global for almost $39.5 million in December 2009. MOL later sold all of Friendster’s patents to Facebook for $40 million.

Image via Mol Global FB Page

Friendster was eventually relaunched as a social gaming site. In June 2015, MOL Global announced that it would shut down Friendster.

Image via Chris Messina | Flickr

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But why did Friendster, once the world’s most popular social network and a pioneer in the field, ultimately fail? 

For once, the site was extremely slow. It sometimes took 40 seconds for a single page to load. Instead of fixing the problem, Friendster added features no one wanted.

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Friendster also struggled with extremely high turnover. From 2003 to 2009, it had six different CEOs in total. Many employees became exhausted due to the constant leadership change.

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Many users, furthermore, departed because of very drastic moderation measures. Friendster removed tons of profiles for seemingly arbitrary reasons.

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