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Is it just me, or is Friendster Vs. Myspace starting to look like a battle between East and West.

A lot of people I know here in The U.S have Myspace, almost none have a Friendster account. In fact, the social network that I still use to connect with friends in The Philippines is still Friendster. I’ve never really been big on Myspace, but then again none of my friends have really been keen on Friendster either…

It’s been a point made by a friend of mine that Myspace focused on the U.S. market, and that other social networks such as Friendster didn’t have that dileberate focus on just the U.S.

I keep telling them that Myspace is just a copycat of what Friendster started, and that the original social marketing big guy was indeed Friendster. Due to very bad focus and thinking too far ahead, friendster was outpaced by Myspace. And when Myspace was finally bought by a media giant, Friendster seemed to be doomed.

I don’t know how monetizing was a big effect (it probably was), but I think that by focusing on the U.S. market, Myspace had more ways to monetize its social network. There’s a lot of advertisers out there in the U.S.

I think, that they should focus on their system and making it more reliable (up to now, I still can’t get my blog at Friendster… It’s been 2 months)

But, at least Friendster hasn’t had the really bad publicity that Myspace has had due to a huge number of online predators that were reportedly on the site searching for underage teens.

According to comScore Media Metrix, Myspace users over 35 years of age now account for half of its community. Quite shocking and maybe even more incentive for parents to really monitor their children’s online behavior. And what about teens under 18 years of age? they are now just 12 percent of the total Myspace users…

Anyways, I think that in the long run, Friendster should put more focus into countries such as India, Indonesia, China, etc. It’s a perfect niche. The main goal, however, is to find better ways to make money from users who quite frankly have less money to spend than their western counterparts.
Having focused on Asian Countries, this rivalry between these two Social Networks will truly be an East Versus West battle.

I don’t think that Friendster will totally fade out, and if they can keep investor capital coming, I think they can make a great comeback.

Everyone loves a comeback story. Rocky, Cinderalla Man, and other movies out there…

This could even make a nice little Star Wars movie. Social Networks: The return of “The Friendster”.

Here’s a great article from the NY times detailing the failures of Friendster.