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.
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?