What is Friendster's business model?

$11 million invested so far. How are they going to make $?

[HughMungus]

And what's the difference between Friendster and (once defunct, now reborn) SixDegrees?

[werty]

I heard they are going to start to charge people. If they do this, they will lose members faster then they signed up.

[HughMungus]

You know what's interesting about that is if they do, there are plenty of other similar services waiting for that business.

I keep wondering if ads specific to each user's vocation/interests would work.

[whizkiddo]

guess they belv that true friendship simply cannot be valued in $$$

I am with them until they start charging. hehe ;)

[shaadi]

That is the question? No business model so far except ad revenue. They are thinking of charging for premium services but the basic service will be free.

Similarly, Ryze, Tribe, Ringo, Linkedin, MySpace, Meredost etc. are all free for now.....wait and see what happens.

[werty]

A friend came over last night and checked his email...he also attempted to check friendster and had problems getting on and seeing images. He then went to myspace and I looked at the people on it. The exact same group of people(minus me).

I think people will instantly change over to a new one of these networking services if they ever do charge for it.

I do not see why google would want to buy this property other than to taget advertsing or to collect user data.

[trillianjedi]

I do not see why google would want to buy this property other than to taget advertsing or to collect user data.

Friendster were absolutely nuts not to take the money.

TJ

[werty]

Microsoft is planning their own "social networking" site/software. It is called wallop, and it is by invite only.

[wired.com...]

[HughMungus]

More on Friendster and its imitators.

'Internet 2.0,' or the rise of social networks

[cbs.marketwatch.com...]