Facebook vs Friendster
What are you using Facebook or Friendster? I am not a big fan of social websites but I do have accounts for both Facebook and Friendster. Lately, I have been observing a path of transition of most Philippines social site users and the shift is favorable to Facebook.
About two years ago, most of my friends, classmates and family members are addicted to Friendster. It is in fact the most popular social website not only in the Philippines but in the whole of Asia. On the other hand, Facebook was and still very popular in the West. But when I had the time to compare Friendster and Facebook I have proved my assumptions to be correct, most Philippines Friendster users are now transferring to Facebook. And it will just be a matter of time until the rest of Asia follows suit.
Why is Facebook becoming more and more popular than Friendster? I have come up with some factors here.
Facebook is Clean and Refreshing
One attractive feature of Facebook is its refreshing interface. No borders, no lines no heavy graphics. It really seems like you are only scribbling notes on a scratch paper. Although Facebook seems unorganized, it is really easy to appreciate the absence of limiting visual lines. Friendster on the other hand employs heavy visual controls. I used to hate those of my friends’ profiles where the wall paper background drowns the profile details, match it up with yellow fonts and you will get sick.
Facebook Entertains a Kid
One of the best selling point of Facebook is its games. (They said) that all of them are truly entertaining. I don’t know how entertaining because I always ignore or reject invitations for Farmville, Fishville, Cafe World or Mafia Wars because I don’t have time for them. You can even get Fishville cheats and Farmville cheats online. But I am satisfied with Feeding Frenzy and Mario Kart. I also see some Friendster games but I guess Facebook dominates the social website game realm.
Facebook is Lighting Fast
Remember when you use Friendster and search for your long lost friends? You have to do trial and error experiments in name combination of your friends. When you find them, you have to make a request and wait for the confirmation. I don’t know about you but Friendster’s friend-connection and approval tools seems to take longer than Facebook. The latter has features like friend suggestions and recommended friends and that a simple click of Friend Request sends instant message to the other party. In fact I did not even tried the search function of Facebook but I am able to add friends day after day.
Facebook is the Trend
We cannot deny the fact that the most influential part of the Friendster to Facebook shift is social trend. It is the IN thing. And people are always looking for opportunities to be one of everyone else. I have been asked multiple times “what is your Facebook account?” When I answer I don’t have one, the immediate response is “Go create one, it’s the IN thing now and much more fun”.
I do not know if there is really a trend of rise and fall in social site popularity because so far, we can only compare two famous sites, Freindster and Facebook. Maybe some day Facebook will also suffer the same fate as Friendster when newer and better sites come out. We’ll see. Just a thought, I like the Facebook picture tagging function hehehe.
I don’t know what to say about this 2 social network since I’m not using both of it. BTW, good reviewReply
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Comment by steppinout — November 16, 2009 @ 1:18 pm
Try them out steppingout they’re so much fun (blah) hehe. At least Facebook is good for pics IMHO. Thanks
Comment by riantalk — November 16, 2009 @ 3:10 pm
i’m also used to friendster user, i love to design the friendster page, but then everything seem to be so annoying, lots of profile start to widget here and there it so cluster and make me hate it, auto-play song and such…
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then I try facebook, i really like it because it simpleness and function that quite good. and also because nowadays everyone using it
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Comment by izzat aziz — November 16, 2009 @ 4:28 pm
correct izzat, sometimes friendster pages load much slower because of these plugins.
Comment by riantalk — November 16, 2009 @ 4:51 pm
I go for http://game-previews.com because I have my own social networking inside hehehehReply
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Comment by Game Previews — November 17, 2009 @ 6:22 am
Wow you have one? Let me check that out hehe
Comment by riantalk — November 17, 2009 @ 7:22 am
I have friendster account and I have facebook account too. but when it comes to interactive features I go for facebook heeeheReply
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Comment by csseyah — November 23, 2009 @ 8:34 am