These social networks sure do like Google execs. Facebook hired Sheryl Sandberg, Google’s VP Global Online Sales And Operations, in March 2008. Bebo hired away Joanna Shields as President - previously she was Google’s Managing Director for Google Europe, Russia, Middle East & Africa.
Now Friendster. They’ve hired Richard Kimber, who was Google’s Managing Director of Sales and Operations for South East Asia and had over 1,000 people in his organization, to take over as the new CEO.
Previous CEO Kent Lindstrom will become SVP Corporate Development, says the WSJ. And the company has also raised a new $20 million round of financing led by IDG Ventures. The company has now raised $45 million.
The Friendster story is long and mostly sad. The company was founded in 2002 and owned the social networking world five years ago. They turned down a $30 million offer from Google in 2003 because they thought their destiny was something greater (that stock would be worth many times that amount based on Google’s stock price today). Instead of selling to Google, founder Jonathan Abrams raised venture capital. Friendster eventually raised money from Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers, Benchmark Capital and Battery Ventures. Some of the most successful and well known venture capitalists in silicon valley joined Friendster’s board of directors. After a failure to sell the company in late 2005, they recapitalized the company and Kent Lindstrom, one of the founders of Friendster, took over as President.
By our calculations Friendster is the worlds 16th most valuable social network today, although it is the 9th most trafficked website.
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I thought Friendster closed down?
This is just a sad reflection on Silicon Valley culture. For all the talk about doing good, most engineers and business folks in Silicon Valley would rather work at a social network than a company that actually does anything for the world.
maybe if friendster had a domain name like MyLocation.com or MySpot.com or MyArea.com or MyBox.com it could have became somebody. How much did the MySpace.com (personalized location) domain name have to do with its success? We can only imagine. Advice…….get rid of friendster sounds like stale AOL and Napster combined. There domain can be there biggest handicapp.
Does he read the news?
Is this a signal of google being over powered by social networks? Will be interesting to see.
People still use Friendster???
I was wondering that, too. I guess so. Ran into some people from high school and they were asking me for my Friendster account. WTF? Facebook, or go to my blog, haha. It’s amazing how behind the times in technology people are, even the Millennials.
Just because you don’t use it or people in the US don’t use it, does not mean people are behind in technology.
Friendster fulfills a specific geographical target market , just like Orkut, HI5, Xing. But we can ask why not switch to Facebook? When you have friends who have been using Friendster for years, it may not be easy to move your data especially your friends to another site.
Not in the States, but Friendster is the #1 social network in Asia - and is more than twice the size of any other social network, according to ComScore.
But unless MySpace wants to compete in the Asian markets, it should learn a thing or two about declining social networks.
Perhaps the unlikely scernario of Friendster giving out more lucrative stock options than Google lured him over.
don’t rule Friendster out just yet guys. it may be dead in the overcrowded SNS space of the US, but i’m pretty sure they’ve got huge market share in SE Asia. which makes sense as to why they hired Google exec from that market.
also hear they’re making a push for China (along with every other SNS in the world) — wouldn’t be surprised if they did better than Facebook or MySpace in China. kind of a big deal considering there are oh 240 million internet users in China and growing to match the 650 million+ mobile phone users…many of which are web enabled.
there is internet life outside the US. just sayin’
I can confirm that they are huge here in SE Asia.
What’s wrong with Friendster? Just take a look at their classifieds.
“Men looking for Men” may be okay in San Francisco but goes over in Asia like a lead balloon.
How could a company be so clueless when the majority of it’s core users are in the Asian geographic.
OH really Smarti Frutty? I guess you’ve never been to south-east Asia, with endless scores of ladyboys all over the place - from Bangkok to Kuala Lumpur and beyond…
Right zzen, another idiot you are. Like Friendster needs to have ladyboys signing up. By the way, you seem to know too much about the topic of ladyboys - or least superficially. Why don’t you tell us how much they charge too?
Was he sacked from Google? Anybody know? He just kinda vanished from this part of the world and not a peep from Google
His plan is to build a time machine, go back to 2003 and accept the Google offer.
I really don’t like the animated ads in the feed.
May just unsubscribe… haven’t decided.
Just my two cents.
(feel free to delete this comment)
Soon, with its steady decline in the world stage, the US will no longer be the center of the social networking universe. Asia will be. Friendster is huge in the Philippines. What appears to be a coup for Friendster here could actually be a gold mine for Kimber in 3 to 5 years.
Kimber? Heard he was a joke… all he does is hit on the women in the various Google offices in Asia. For having such a long interview process, Google does a crappy job on screening many of their senior employees.
It not that bad story for Friendster. They have the traffic and it is a matter of time they find a new channel of income or buyers.
I thought everyone’s dream job is to work in Google.
rats jumping off a sinking ship… hmmm i dont think so.. would be good though
Thrive or Fail? Friendster gets another $20M and new CEO [VOTE] - http://www.thriveorfail.com/7d44e
Jonathan Abrams is too arrogant in my opinion. That’s not the attitude of a successful ceo. They could have been facecook or myspace, but no. They blew it.
Interesting summary of a trend to hire ex-Google executives by social networks. Interesting why “google” is supposed to be classy by definition. After all, Google’s own social network is not even all that successful so the people don’t seem to have all the relevant experience.
i dont know what to say to leave google for a third world sn
the guy probably was gonna be fired from google for poor performance anyway
@James Jonathan Abrams hasn’t been involved with Friendster for several years.
He started a new company, Socializr, which brings online invitations and event planning into the modern world. If you hate Evite like so many people do, you should check it out:
http://www.socializr.com
I’m from Asia. And I’m telling you guys, Friendster is the king in Asia. KING.
i have a friendster i was search this friendster still there but i’m forget my email n my password, but i know my URL in friendster. i give u my URL in friendster that is http://profiles.friendster.com/64128003. May u help me for to opened my friendster cause i need my friendster again and i have some picture in there. can u help me please where i can get my friendster again…….thnx n GBU
i have a friendster i was search this friendster still there but i’m forget my email n my password, but i know my URL in friendster. i give u my URL in friendster that is http://profiles.friendster.com/64128003. May u help me for to opened my friendster cause i need my friendster again and i have some picture in there. can u help me please where i can get my friendster again…….thnx n GBU
i have a friendster i was search this friendster still there but i’m forget my email n my password, but i know my URL in friendster. i give u my URL in friendster that is http://profiles.friendster.com/64128003. May u help me for to opened my friendster cause i need my friendster again and i have some picture in there. can u help me please where i can get my friendster again…….thnx n GBU