WHY is Friendster so popular in the Philippines?
Once upon a time, Friendster was the social networking site. It was huge in the US and other countries, but since then it has seen a pretender to the throne, MySpace, become the new king of social networking.
In the Philippines, however, Friendster is still hands-down the most popular social networking site, notwithstanding the presence of homegrown alternatives such as GrooveNet. It’s not an exaggeration to say that Filipinos are practically single-handedly keeping Friendster alive. Heck, according to Alexa, Friendster is the second most popular site for Philippine Internet users, next only to Yahoo!
Which makes you wonder: Why is Friendster so popular among us Filipinos? Is it the first-mover advantage? After all, having given Friendster our personal information and built a network of friends there, it’s kind of a drag to have to start all over again in a new social networking site. Then again, that didn’t stop people in other countries from leaving Friendster behind and migrating to MySpace and other competitors.
Is it a cultural quirk? Like when a generation of Filipinos embraced Voltes V with a fervor that would surprise even the people in the land of its birth, Japan, as well as viewers in other countries.
Maybe someone could explain the reason for this phenomenon? One thing’s for sure, thouh: Friendster has become an indispensable part of the online life of many Filipinos. If you or your friends have a great pic, you’ll often hear someone describe it as “pang-Friendster.” Phone pals, or, heaven forbid, pen pals? Nope, nowadays it’s “ka-Friendster.” Sure, some people — hell, most of the world — would say Friendster is baduy, jologs or yesterday’s news, but Filipinos love it anyway.
What’s your Friendster story? Why do you like Friendster? What’s your unforgettable Friendster experience? Share your tales, and maybe we can better understand what makes Friendster the Filipino friend.
September 15th, 2007 at 8:30 pm
have you try Mobitrek Mobile? a WAP based mobile social networking, at http://m.mobitrek.com/ (from mobile device or PC) it’s free and you can search friends, blogging, forum etc…
July 13th, 2007 at 5:08 am
WAG NA NATING HIMAYIN WHY FRIENDSTER ROCKS! Basta hiyang na hiyang siya sa psyche ng mga pinoy. And nag-eevolve naman sya, naalala nyo pa ba nung 5 photos lang ang allowed pics nila? I myself have two accounts…one is my main one and the other for those looking for me in the search bar. MANAKAW NA MGA CELPHONE, MAG-EXPIRE MAN EMAIL MO basta connected ka sa Friendster ng mga friends mo you can easily regain contact.
WISH KO LANG magkaroon na ng chatroom, maski simple lang. AND maging parang email na yung message section. AND bawat pic mareretain ang original resolution nya para pwede na ring
repository ng pics. ALSO dumami pa allowed pics. (hey Friendster are you listening? Don’t rest on your laurels guys…Eskwela.com is nice too, masyado
lang bago)
Pero until then FRIENDSTER pa rin. Sobra-sobra na sana kasikatan nya sa pinas kung di nahaharang ng firewall sa mga offices.
Yung nagsabing baduy sya, is just marching to the beat of his own drum. It’s the PR space of the Noypi, and we all enjoy browsin’ thru other’s PR spaces.
PAKISABI lang sa mga nag-asawa na na mga girls, gumawa naman kayo ng account where you are using your maiden name as your display name. Para mahanap kayo ng old friends nyo.
OK GOD BLESS USERS OF PINOYSTER…este…prenster
June 28th, 2007 at 1:26 pm
catchy name i guess. friend-oriented
June 18th, 2007 at 7:54 pm
i prefer friendster than myspace because there are a lot of perverts in myspace.. people who post nude pics and all… i disagree that friendster is baduy… bkit pag nagugustuhan ng mraming pinoy. sinasabi ng iba na baduy… like mga teleseryes or pinoy movies… and not to mention, mga kapwa pilipino ang nanglalait sa mga ito… ipokreta!
June 10th, 2007 at 10:25 pm
[...] I’ve previously blogged in @play, Friendster is huge in the Philippines (and readers have to sent in comments to explain why that’s [...]
June 5th, 2007 at 1:08 pm
WHY Filipinos still use Friendster over Myspace?
- Friendster’s main objective is simply for social networking.
- Myspace has a lot of other objectives that contribute to so much noise. Myspace members post lots of their own video, MTV, picture albums, too much multimedia but mostly for making money.
- Friendster layout and interface is easy to use and navigate.
- MySpace pages have too much SPAM and take a longer time to upload.
- Friendster i smore personal while Myspace is too commercial.
Actually I have accounts on both sites but my Friendster is personal, my Myspace is for business.
May 25th, 2007 at 3:00 pm
The main reason is, We invested so much to create our network in friendster for years. We discover our HS friends, relatives, make friends and connections through it, Why would you go to other networking site if you already have your network through friendster? If you will go to other networking site you’re not even sure if your friends are members there. Another possibility is Filipinos goes to things that are “IN”, If they heard from their friends that they use those kind of things, they want to have that also. The other possibility is filipinos are too lazy to transfer all their investment in networking to a new one to start all over again.
May 25th, 2007 at 12:08 pm
I think its been a trend that most of us (in the Phil) follows. Unnoticeably it has grow that it becomes the most popular in the country. But Im open in trying new one its just Friendster has most of my friends.
May 25th, 2007 at 10:16 am
Why friendster still huge in RP?? because its famous and well-known site than “MySpace”…try to ask people and conduct a survey, im sure a lot of them didnt even know “MySpace” and other social networking site especially universities in the provinces….
May 25th, 2007 at 8:45 am
What is your basis for stating that “Filipinos are practically single-handedly keeping Friendster alive”?
May 25th, 2007 at 8:37 am
Walang gumagamit ng friendster dito sa US, baduy kasi. Myspace ang ginagamit dito. Ewan ko nga eh, kung bakit sikat na sikat ang friendster dyan sa Pinas. Almost all celebrities have their own myspace, even American Idol has one.
May 25th, 2007 at 8:18 am
Why Pinoy loves Friendster (or Voltes V for that matter)? It’s simple, Pinoys are branded minded peeps, especially if that brand is what we call “subok na sa panahon”… We Pinoys would “usually” stick to things that we find most comfortable dealing with, the comfort zone kung baga… thus we coin sometimes things as generic like colgate when we mean toothpaste… gasul when we mean LPG… chicken joy when we actually mean fried chicken etc… the liost can go on forever…
Thus this mean Pinoys are loyal people? Could be, but then this is another complex matter to discuss…
Though I have to admit, I do have a Friendster account (and Multiple as well). My younger sister set it up for me because at that time I was the only one in our family who didn’t have one. I don’t log-in religiously, just check and see who’s new once in a while and who among my old mates have re-discovered my existence.
Sadly, since I am a computer “clean” freak, I discovered that Friendster installs a tracking cookie in my cache. Well according to my Ad-Aware SE scanner… the reason why I’m not a regular… nevertheless this wouldn’t mean that it’s not a good web-app and a place to hang out with old flames and mates…
BTW, I’m blogging from the UK…
May 25th, 2007 at 7:09 am
I have been away from the Philippines for some time. When I left P.I, I never heard of Friendster. I was surprised when I finally joined that some of my HS classmates, neighbors, cyberfriends, people I know from the next office where I used to work in P.I. were already members and my ex even
Isn’t that a great thing to connect? plus you get to post pics, music and blog. One thing I noticed, friendster has more wholesome members than myspace whose members mostly wants to show off their barely covered bodies.
May 25th, 2007 at 6:07 am
ang nagpapabuhay ngayon sa friendster eh yung mga class c at d, yung usually tinatawag na “jologs” crowd na ngayon lang nagkakaron ng access sa internet.
marami rin kase ang ayaw mag myspace especially kung wala sa metro manila dahil kung wala kang high speed connection, aabutin ka ng siyam-siyam sa pagload ng pages sa myspace dahil sa mga embeded na videos at music. yung groovenet naman, mukhang kasangkapan lang yun nung may-ari ng web site para mangolekta ng chicks na pinay hehehe.
May 24th, 2007 at 8:47 pm
* i only had my friendster account since 2005 and its surprising that most of my friends already had theirs like years before that.
* i welcome the goosebumps and the smile it leaves my face everytime i see friends, classmates and exes from way back
* thank god there’s friendster!
May 24th, 2007 at 5:40 pm
I’ve been in friendster since 2003. Hard to abandon friendster specially when you invested a lot of time and effort in building your own friendster.
May 24th, 2007 at 4:55 pm
According to one of the most prominent sociologist, malapit ito sa theory ng “Its a lonely crowd out there”. Ang sa akin isa yun sa mga batayan bakit patok ang friendster. Pipol want to be connected to anyone. Sa isang alienating na lipunan maghahanap at maghahanap ang tao ng makadaupang palad man lang - its a natural instinct.
May 24th, 2007 at 3:49 pm
I have accounts at both sites, and I can understand why friendster is more popular with users outside the US: it’s more user-friendly, and far less spam than myspace. Every time I log on myspace I spend a majority of the time deleting spam.
May 24th, 2007 at 3:47 pm
I seldom check Friendster. I check myspace more, and literally park all day on my Multiply- where you can share playlists, videos, blog, post reviews, and tons of photos and network.
May 24th, 2007 at 3:16 pm
I think Pinoys are just too lazy to transfer their info and pics to another site. Plus, most of our friends are in friendster, why go to another site right? I think it’s also because friendster is the NAKASANAYAN NA website of Pinoys. Filipinos also tend to remain loyal to things that theyve gotten used to already, that’s why friendster is still popular among us. I have a myspace account and i have like 6 friends only and 4 are from the states unlike my friendster which has 400+ friends…
May 24th, 2007 at 2:59 pm
People nowadays are looking for anything to connect to especially to their friends. Its one of the best ways to track down their friends and/or potential partners or crush/boyfriend/girfriend. And I think, that’s the most significant explanation to it. And secondly, to make a show of themselves, just to make their friends admire them. Its a place where you could brag about yourself,i.e. showing where you’ve been, pics with Hi-profiles, your best pics.. Sometimes, when they are bored they just log-in and pore into it. Even though there are new social networking sites that will arrive, it could take a long period of time before they’ll join the band since new adjustments have to be made. Until friendster will become obsolete and lousy, the situation will hardly change
May 24th, 2007 at 2:57 pm
because you can’t teach old dogs new tricks..
May 24th, 2007 at 2:43 pm
Friendster keeps you updated with the lives of your friends and family members, especially those who are in far places. I just want to keep Friendster because it’s hard to be maintaining two or three networks at the same time. What with the hectic lives that we have.
May 24th, 2007 at 2:22 pm
filipino already invested so much on gathering their connections on friendster. Plus they dont need much of those other features on other sites because only those with regular internet connection could afford to use them frequently. But i see a lot of filipinos using multiply for those other features not available on friendster.,
May 24th, 2007 at 2:20 pm
i prefer myspace than friendster since its more artistic and most of my friends online are from the US.Besides myspace is more advantage than friendster coz it has chatrooms where people can chat and meet other people also..
May 24th, 2007 at 12:57 pm
I have a friendster account and a myspace account. Most of my friends are in friendster and only about five of them can be found in myspace too…
May 24th, 2007 at 12:32 pm
For me, Multiply rocks. I seldom check my Friendster account ever since I got into Multiply.
May 24th, 2007 at 10:08 am
i love friendster coz it’s like most of the pinoys are on it. I was able to reconnect to some of my classmates after almost two decades. It’s very helpful especially to pinoys who are here abroad coz almost everybody here are connected online. It’s like about Re-Connection.
May 24th, 2007 at 9:40 am
the fact that it was the first networking site makes it indispensible because of the fact that everyone you know is in it already. People have already invested so much time into it plus the Internet connection in the Philippines is painstakingly slow also contributes to the low migration rate to other networking sites such as myspace. A lot of people have experimented with other sites but seem to keep the friendster account alive.
May 24th, 2007 at 9:30 am
eh andun na lahat eh.san ka pa?
May 24th, 2007 at 9:29 am
why friendster?my friends are in frienster!!!
May 24th, 2007 at 9:15 am
simple lang… ano ba naman kasi ang mga pinoy… 1. makakapal ang mukha (nabasa nyo ba karamihan ng comments sa mga profile ng mga sikat sa friendster), 2.malilibog (aminin natin papasa na sa soft porn ang iba sa site), 3.pakiramdam nila sila ang pinaka sa mundo (pinakamaganda’t gwapo, pinakamagaling at lahat pa ng pinaka). konting pino naman sana, kakahiya kayo!!!
May 24th, 2007 at 8:06 am
I think one of the reasons why Friendster is such a hit in the Philippines is beause every Filipino seems to have one. We are constantly changing our lives and the patterns of it. We can easily track our peers down with Friendster because every Filipino seems to have one.
May 24th, 2007 at 7:54 am
ano, lilipat ko contact info at photos ko to myspace? kakatamad! wait ko muna friends ko maunang magmigrate to myspace.
May 23rd, 2007 at 11:55 pm
[...] @play: Why is Friendster still huge in RP? [...]