CEBU, Philippines - Social networking has heightened our desire to make instant connections. It’s easier than sending a message in a bottle, quicker than a “rush” post office mail. And according to Friendster, the pioneering social networking site to have stormed the Philippines, social networking is here to stay.
Anyone who has been online has registered in Friendster. Perhaps only a few refused to get hooked for certain reasons such as net accessibility and whatnot. But for someone who regularly goes online, Friendster is a staple.
Then came the riot of social networking sites. Facebook made a massive invasion in the Philippine web during the last quarter of 2008 and since then it has been attracting different folks across the age divide. YouTube is a sensation since it has turned into a venue for discovering the next big stars. Who could forget Charice Pempengco? Multiply’s entry made Pinoy entrepreneurs giddy in showing off their trades; MySpace,LindkedIn, and a whole lot more! Too many sites to join and yet people don’t mind.
Life goes on for Friendster, according to Country Sales Manager Narciso Reyes, despite competition in the information gateway. The FREEMAN Lifestyle recently had an exclusive chat with Reyes at the Parklane International Hotel Lounge. Friendster refuses to take the backseat in the social networking hullaballoo. This time, they speak out.
The FREEMAN: What’s up with Friendster?
Narciso Reyes: There’s a lot actually! There are a lot of new things in the pipe. Recently, we just signed a deal with a payment gateway MOL (Money OnLine). This is going to help with our micro transactions which we believe is a great revenue stream for us. A lot of social networking sites currently deploy this functionality and this could bring us online with that. Other thing that we’re working on is we’re going through our rebranding effort. So, stay tuned! There’s a new Friendster that’s going to be unveiled over the course of the coming months.
TF: So, when is this?
NR: This is a moving date, depending on how quickly engineering is able to meet the demands. We like it to be sometime in November ideally. The team has been really hard at work, putting forward this new looking feel. It’s going to have more Web 2.0 look but still it will remain true to the brand, true to the core of what Friendster is all about, which is a place to go where you can have fun, meet new friends and connect on various levels.
TF: Social networking is booming right now. What are your views on this?
NR: Oh yes, it’s huge. It’s one of the largest distribution chains in the world. When you talk about social networking, on average, anybody, doesn’t matter what social networking he’s on, has an average of 107 friends. Everytime you post a shoutout or a photo, those 107 people know. Friendster sends out an average of 30 million in transactional emails daily – emails that you might receive in your inbox that updates you on whether or not a friend has a new profile photo, a new shoutout or has joined a fan group.
TF: How many users do you have in the Philippines?
NR: In the Philippines, we have 40 million registered users. Active users are about 13 million or so. It swings a couple of hundred thousand, either way depending on time of day or acts of God like (typhoon) Ondoy. It really affected our user phase primarily because a lot of the access points for what we do are the net cafes. When NCR (National Capital Region) got flooded, accessing the net becomes kind of secondary. So we did see a depth in the traffic at that time but things have come back up to normal levels. Over the course of the years, our traffic has been steady; 8.2 billion month on month.
TF: Even with the presence of Facebook now?
NR: Yes, even with that.
TF: What is your market core demographics? Has it changed now?
NR: Our core demographic of course is youth. Everything is targeted towards that. I think throughout Asia, most of the people who access social networking sites, online in particular, are below age 17. Asia is a very young demographic. About 90 percent of our users are within 16 to 26 age range. This makes up the whole Philippine population. I think at any point, at any given time, there are 330,000 concurrent users, Pinoy users, online within our network. That’s a rolling figure.
TF: What’s your direction now?
NR: It’s youth. We’re making the site fun, bringing functionalities and events that the youth can really wrap around. Games are going to be huge that’s why we did have a tie up with MOL. We’re going to be rolling out something similar to multiplayer games (such as Ragnarok). We have a roster of, I believe, over 20 games so we’re looking at that at the beginning of the year. That’s actually going to start coming online this year. That’s our target but you know how things work with product roll out. A lot is predicated on engineering, resources and whatnot, keeping in mind that the Filipino office is the largest for Friendster globally. There are about 60 people here. A lot of the heavy lifting work is done here. Customer Service and Marketing are based here. Of course, we’ve started growing out our organic sales team. Basically what we were doing before was relying on resellers. We have two resellers in the country today: Havoc Digital and Yehey! They are value partners but we see value in promoting our sites to our own sales force. For the past few years, we were exclusively with Havoc and they’ve done a great job in seeding the local market place in representing us out here.
Music is going to be very heavy. Discussions are still on the wraps but we’re working with a major music label and also very strong partners, locally. What we’re also doing is bringing back online component offline. So, events are going to be huge for us. We recently had our attempt at the Grand Eyeball. We are attempting to set the world record for the biggest eyeball last August 15 at the SM Mall of Asia. It was headlined by Rico Blanco and other bands like Callalily and Paraluman. Over 7,000 people attended that. Forty thousand people downloaded the invite but the space can only hold around 4,000 people. It was really well-attended and we were really pleased with the outcome.
One of the things that we work on is to go super local within the market. We’re working with partners over here and to bring events here in Cebu. Come December, we’ll be down here. You’ll be seeing a much more active Friendster within the local market. Y101 have been great partners, so far. We’re really excited about working with them and meeting all of the user phase out here. We’re looking forward to that. I don’t think the competitors are doing like that. So, next year should be really active for us in terms of what we bring offline.
TF: What are the common reported problems of your users?
NR: I think a lot of them have been well-documented. Every social networking site faces the same problems. Porn, spam, things along those lines. I think all of these problems have been addressed. We’re currently working with a company here in the Philippines; they’re actually right across the hall from our office in Ayala (Avenue, Makati). We really reduce the amount of porn and spam within the system. So, the database or at least the user base is cleaner now. We use proprietary software that was developed in our offices in Mountain View, (California, USA). It’s our own software.
TF: For concerns, where do we go/what do we do?
NR: Our Customer Service team is based here in the Philippines now. They are very active in trying to police that. Usually it starts through sending out an email to them then they take their cue. There’s a team of around 10 members. All they do is reply to concerns, issues, etc that arise from our users. It’s customersupport@friendster.com. Customer service is our anchor market so a lot of our activities are focused here and throughout Southeast Asia.
TF: How are you dealing with this Facebook craze right now?
NR: It’s there and we realize that it’s a threat but we keep in mind that for the youth, which is our core market, on an average, have four different social networking sites. We believe that there’s space for everyone out there. Facebook is in massive growth but a lot of that growth are (ages) 35 and above. At the end of the day, if you are 18 or at the prime demographic, you ask yourself: “Do I want to be on the same site as my parents?” Maybe or maybe not! We’d like to use the analogy of the living room and the bedroom. When you’re in the living room, you’re well-behaved but the youth when they’re in their bedroom, that’s their native environment. They can let their hair down a little bit, they can customize a little more. They can listen to what music they want without mom and dad having to tell them to lower the music. That’s the way we keep Friendster and that’s the way we’re aligning all of our functionality and our product lines. You’re going to see much more of an entertainment focus.
TF: How old is Friendster here in the Philippines? How did the country become the social networking capital of the world?
NR: Friendster was first launched in 2002 by Jonathan Abrams, an ex-Netscape engineer. The total concept of social networking came out with his desire to date because he was on this website called match.com. He thought there was a better way to do it. Instead of one going out, meeting random people, he thought of linking people through kind of this 6 degrees of separation theory via an online algorithm. The 6 degrees separation theory basically states that you can link yourself to anybody in the world through six degrees of separation. So it’s like “I know A through B who knows C who knows D who knows E who knows F then who knows A.” So you can kind of see what level of degree you are of how engaged you are with that person. He then released a Beta to a close group of friends, no more than 20 friends. Then they started enlisting their friends to join the website, so on and so forth. The growth was massive. I think they hit like a million page use within a couple months. But the reason why Friendster is so big here (in the Philippines) can be traced to a marketing consultant named Leilani de Jesus. She was the 91st person to join Friendster. She then started inviting her relatives and friends to join Friendster. They first only got wind of how big it was in the Philippines well not only through her but because they would check their server locks, like 2AM West Coast time, there’s a huge spiking traffic. They traced it all the way back to the Philippines. They have identified Miss de Jesus as patient zero. So anyone who really got a Friendster account here in the Philippines can be traced back to her. This one person begets 40 million registered users and made the Philippines one of the social networking hubs in the world.
TF: Customizing your site is one of your advantages as a website right?
NR: Yes. That’s our advantage over our competitors. The high levels of customization will remain as one of the core features of the site. Some of the new functionalities will reflect all of that, as well.
TF: Are your Cebu users very active?
NR: Certainly! They count for about 20 percent of the active users here in the Philippines.
TF: What’s the future of social networking here in the Philippines?
NR: There’s a desire for people not only to connect online but to connect offline. They kind of replicate that kind of experience that they’re enjoying online and do that offline. We’ve been trying to do that in the event packages that we’ve been rolling out. At the end of the day, social networking and online in general, it makes the world a smaller place. It’s here to stay. It’s going to be part of everyone’s life...moving forward. You’ll start to see improvements in technology: I guess, content aggregation and of course deeper search functionalities.
TF: Can you give us safety precautionary measures when going online.
NR: A lot of people learn it the hard way. There is permanence to the web and in what you post in the web. Sure, it makes our life easier but it can be a double-edged sword. You have to be cognizant of the fact that what you post in a shoutout, people will know. Do you want them to know that? A lot of it is self discipline in posting things and putting up pictures that you may or may not want to know. There is permanence to all of that. It’s common sense.
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