Former social networking leader Friendster, and one of the pioneers in social networking has added new features on its site. Friendster is the most popular social networking site here in the Philippines, and most notably the rest of Asia Pacific. Although it ranks fourth in the world of social networking, being MySpace, Facebook, and Hi5 the top three.
Friendster, introduced their Chinese version of the site sometime this week. This is to open the site to more Chinese users since 16% of Internet users are from China. This move will greately improve their foot hold on the Asia Pacific region, not that they really need to (see the report from comscore below). Unlike MySpace, which operates a number of international verticals in different languages, Friendster’s Chinese version will exist atop the same domain as its English-language site. This way, English-speaking users will be able to network with Chinese-speaking users and vice versa.
Friendster’s another new feature is called “Fan Profiles.” It is a way for celebrities, bands, companies, nonprofit organizations and other entities to self-promote. A “fan profile” is a separate kind of account than a regular Friendster profile and is listed differently in friends lists as a result. The interface is slightly different, and there are more robust features for contact list management and mass e-mails
While this new enhancements will help Friendster gain popularity on other countries, only time will tell when new features also arrive in its competitors. It also makes me wonder how did Friendster got so popular in Asia, while almost the rest of the world adopted MySpace and Facebook.
Social networking goes global by Comscore.
[news.com] & [webware.com]
Popularity: 7% [?]
This new Palm Phone Jammer, from Brando, is small and cheap for a regular cellphone jammer available in the market. With its small inconspicuous design, you can hide it it your pocket then jam cellphone users for up to 30 foot radius. This device shuts down GSM 850-, 900-, 1,800- and 1,900 MHZ cell phone calls. It’s cheap for a jammer, costing only $166 and it has a rechargeable lithium ion battery.
This phone jammer may actually useful in movie theaters when you don’t want to be bothered by ringing cell phones. But on the other side, it may block important and/or emergency calls.
[computerworld.com]
Popularity: 7% [?]
This image is one of Michael Sullivan’s artistic creations. More images (and even a video preview of Sex Life of Robots) are available here. When you think long and hard about it, there’s probably one thing that these robots can’t have sex without: lubricant.
Popularity: 12% [?]
Shanda Entertainment, one of heavy hitters in the gaming industry in China, announced that their subsidiary, Aurora Technology, has frozen accounts of male players who have elected to play as female characters in the King of the World MMORPG. Female gamers are required to prove their biological sex with a webcam. Aurora Technology stipulates that only authentic female gamers can play female characters in the game.
Will this move greatly affects the players in general, specifically the male players? How about the other online games where there is a gender specific class, like Ran Online? I mean how can a male play as another class, if he can’t use a female based-character.
[news.mmosite.com]
Popularity: 7% [?]
The biggest names in the mobile industry, Samsung, Motorola, Sony Ericsson, LG, and Nokia, were able to agree on a single standard for cell phone plugs. The new Micro USB will be the design they will ultimately adopt when this standard is implemented. This is a good news, since nowadays most people own two to three mobiles phones with different carriers and models. The new standard will mostly help in the reduction of cable accessories one has to deal with in their everyday use.
Micro-USB, which is thinner than the currently ubiquitous mini-USB standard and therefore better suited to the ever-shrinking dimensions of mobile phones and other consumer electronics, was introduced to the world by the USB Implementers Forum (USB-IF) at the start of this year. Like mini-USB, the standard also makes it possible to charge phones from PCs.
[www.news.com] via [gearlog.com]
Popularity: 7% [?]
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