Friendster Launches Strategic Partnership with Yahoo! Southeast Asia
Leading Social Network and Largest Web Portal in Asia Team Up to Deliver Integrated New Features to Over 100 Million Users
MOUNTAIN VIEW, Calif/PRNewswire/ -- Friendster, Inc., a
top global web site based on traffic, today announced a new multi-year
strategic partnership with Yahoo! Southeast Asia, one of the most
trafficked Internet destinations in Asia, designed to benefit their
users via the launch of integrated product features and promotional
initiatives across both the Friendster and Yahoo! web properties. The
new relationship will also foster new user registrations and increase
user activity for both companies as Yahoo! is the leading provider of
web mail, instant messaging and other content and services throughout
Southeast Asia, and Friendster is a leading social network in Southeast
Asia with over 90 million registered users and 90 percent of its daily
traffic coming from Southeast Asia today.
The strategic relationship is comprised of four major components,
which include (1) a new application built by Friendster that is
currently available and prominently displayed on the new Yahoo!
homepage in Southeast Asia, (2) graphical and text-based promotional
placements for Yahoo! products and services on the Friendster.com
website, (3) the upcoming launch of enhanced search results for
Friendster user profiles and Friendster Fan Profiles within Yahoo!
Search, and (4) the ability for Friendster users to soon link their
Friendster account to their Yahoo! account on an opt-in basis to share
their Friendster network activity updates with friends and others via
Yahoo! properties. The first two of these four components have just
launched, with the remaining two coming in early 2010.
The Friendster and Yahoo! Southeast Asia strategic partnership includes:
1. The Friendster Application for Yahoo!'s Homepage and the Yahoo! Toolbar
- Friendster just launched a new application that allows users to
quickly and conveniently check their Friendster network activity and
perform other key Friendster activities directly from their Yahoo!
homepage, or from a user's browser-based Yahoo! Toolbar. Specifically,
this Friendster application is now available on Yahoo! homepages in
Indonesia, Singapore, and the Philippines and in Malaysia in early
2010, and users around the world can add this application directly from
the Yahoo! application directory. The Friendster application displays
new network activity from a user's Friendster network, such as new
Shoutouts, photos, friend connections, comments, and more. It also
allows users to post Shoutouts, view their Shoutout Stream, and
provides quick and direct access to a user's Friendster homepage,
profile page, friends list, messages, and Fan Profiles. The Friendster
application on Yahoo! can be installed here:
http://m.www.yahoo.com/add?yapid=YUlBdv5g, or by clicking on the
Friendster tab on the left side of the Yahoo! homepage. The Friendster
application was developed on the Yahoo! Application Program (YAP).
2. Yahoo! Promotional Placements on Friendster - Friendster has launched a
series of custom, premium promotional placements on the Friendster.com
website to promote Yahoo! Web Mail, Yahoo! Messenger and additional
Yahoo! products and services over time. These prominent placements are
on several of Friendster's top viewed pages, including users' homepages
(both the logged-in and logged-out versions), and user profile pages.
3. Customized Friendster Search Results on Yahoo! - In early 2010,
Friendster will launch new enhanced Yahoo! search results for both
Friendster member profiles and the Friendster Fan Profiles used by
celebrities, artists and organizations, making Friendster results on
Yahoo! Search more visible, useful, and engaging. The new search
results will include a Friendster custom layout of Friendster pages in
Yahoo! search results that includes convenient links, photos, and key
information from the underlying profile pages. This will make
Friendster results standout in Yahoo! search results, and help Yahoo!
and Friendster users more easily discover and connect with the things
that are important to them. Of course, privacy settings that have
already been set and are controllable by each Friendster user for their
profile page will apply to the information shared in these enhanced
Yahoo! search results. The customized Friendster search results were
developed leveraging Yahoo!'s Search Monkey developer program.
4. Publishing Friendster Updates in Yahoo! Accounts - In early 2010,
Friendster will give its users the ability to publish Friendster
network activity (from a user's "Stream" on Friendster) to Yahoo!
Messenger and other Yahoo! properties (that leverage the Yahoo! Updates
API and initiative). This will allow Friendster users to share their
publicly-available activities on Friendster - such as new Shoutouts,
new photos, new friends, new messages, etc. - to Yahoo! and their
friends in Yahoo! Messenger, for example. Friendster users will opt-in
to this program, explicitly linking their Friendster account to their
Yahoo! account and answering a few key questions to establish their
privacy controls and how they would like to use this feature.
Friendster and Yahoo! will implement this new feature by integrating
via Yahoo!'s Updates API.
Friendster and Yahoo! will begin to roll out these initiatives with
a plan to achieve full implementation in early 2010. Users have already
begun to benefit from the partnership as the Friendster application
just launched on the homepage of Yahoo! Southeast Asia in conjunction
with Yahoo! Mail and Messenger prominently promoted in placements on
Friendster's homepage and profile pages, respectively.
"We look forward to a successful strategic relationship with Yahoo!
Southeast Asia with the debut of the Friendster application on Yahoo!
homepages in Indonesia, Singapore and the Philippines," said David
Jones, vice president of global product at Friendster. "Our new
relationship, integration and crosspromotional efforts with Yahoo! will
help build stronger links between two large and leading web properties
in Asia for the benefit of both user bases, and will enable Friendster
and Yahoo! to continue expanding our respective online communities in
Southeast Asia."
"Working together with Friendster ensures Yahoo! remains relevant to
people by offering the best online content and experiences. This is a
major milestone in the Yahoo! Open Strategy, our combined services will
enrich the online environment allowing people to get more done faster
and in a single place," said Ken Mandel, vice president and managing
director, Yahoo! Southeast Asia. "Yahoo! holds a leadership position in
Southeast Asia and this new partnership with Friendster provides us
with a great opportunity to further engage with the online communities."
About Friendster
With more than 115 million members worldwide, Friendster is a
leading global online social network. Friendster is focused on helping
people stay in touch with friends and discover new people and things
that are important to them. Friendster is one of the best sites that
allow people to meaningfully participate with others in exciting and
fun ways. Friendster prides itself in delivering an easy-to-use,
friendly and interactive environment where users can easily connect
with anyone around the world via www.friendster.com or m.friendster.com
from any Internet-ready mobile device. Friendster has a growing
portfolio of patents granted to the company on social networking, with
more expected over the next several months. Friendster was acquired in
December 2009 by MOL Global Pte. Ltd. ("MOL Global"), an affiliate of
leading online payment solutions provider MOL AccessPortal Berhad
("MOL"). Friendster and MOL have been combined to create Asia's largest
end-to-end content, distribution and commerce network, pairing MOL's
offline retail channel partners and payment platform with Friendster's
large online footprint, social network and user community in Asia.
Source: Friendster, Inc.
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