From Friendster to Facebook
Many of us have totally switched to Facebook as our primary social networking site. We have somehow neglected Friendster accounts and open them once in two to four weeks or not as often (24/7) as we open Facebook .
The talk conducted by Paolo Pangan of Yehey!Philippines gave me some insights on this matter and made me think of other reasons why such a shift happened.
1. During Friendster times, one of our main goal (well, for most user, I think) was to get as much friends as possible without considering whether you really know the person or not. All we wanted was to show the world that we already have a second, third, fourth, fifth (and so on) accounts because previous accounts reached the limit for the number of friends.
But now, in Facebook, we treasure every contact we have and, more or less, we really know all the people in our list. We learned from Friendster that the number does not really matter—it’s quality over quantity.
2. Facebook tells us that we do not have to repost every picture of ourselves that our friends have. Just by tagging, we all have a copy of the pictures we want.
3. In Friendster, flooding the bulletin board is acceptable. But don’t we just hate flooding?
In Facebook, flooding the newsfeed is like humiliating yourself. There you are, discipline!
4. Friendster surveys and quizzes (from bulletin boards) make me type and answer for several minutessss. I have to open all of the others’ posts and pages to know if they have the same answers/results as mine.
Facebook surveys and quizzes make me click for my answers and get results in seconds. I can easily see the headshots of my friends with the same results as mine.
5. Facebook allows us to constantly update our status and keep track of our previous status.
In Friendster, where shall we put it? In shout outs? Shout out, once erased, is gone forever.
6. We can easily share and make our friends know that we have posted a new picture, video, comment, or even link through real-time updates seen at the lower right portion of Facebook.
7. Facebook lets you see your friends who are online and chat with them. Friendster do not.
8. Our Friendster inboxes receive and are flooded by spam messages and invites to try applications.
Our Facebook inboxes receive messages that are really meant personally for us.
9. I do not know why, but I agree with Sir Paolo Pangan, Facebook looks and is a sophisticated social networking site compared to others.
**Social networking sites constantly give us lessons on privacy. Internet presence may be a threat to everyone’s privacy but it is still up to the person to regulate the information publicized to all. Also, changes in our interests toward networking sites only prove that consumers’ preferences change too.
Do you agree with these? Feel free to comment and leave your insights and reasons about the topic.
Dominique Anne
Hi, thanks for visiting and commenting on my site.
Yeah, I agree with you, Facebook does have all those great ‘quality apps’ compared to its now outdated rival Friendster. As to why many Filipinos now prefer Facebook over Friendster? It’s the nature of us human beings, summarized by this old cliche’ ‘Why stick with less when you can have so much more’.
Facebook is indeed offering us more than what Friendster is doing. I am wondering if another social network can outdo Facebook now. Oh well, that’s for us to know (soon?).
Thanks for paying a visit too.
^^ hello. thank you for ur comments.
it’s true wat u said too.
however, not only filipinos do that, prefer facebook over friendster. many people are like that too.
nice blog anyway.
^^
Hi, yumi! It only shows that not only Filipinos experienced this shift of interest in terms of social networking. Thanks for visiting my blog!
I’ve realized that these social networking sites have been categorized into jologs (friendster) and pa-sosyal (facebook). As for your comparisons, i totally agree. i don’t think i still have friends who update their friendster. They are all hooked up to facebook. It is like a 3-in-1 site where you can do multitasking; play, chat, comment, & tag.
You’re right, many still open their friendster account but do not update it, including myself! hehe! I think the jologs and sosyal part emerged because many of friendster users are already posers and people sending spam or creating a virus. I actually opened a particular person’s profile and friendster stopped me from opening it because it said it’s a virus.
Facebook as sosyal can be proved by its layout and features. Or by facebook users? We cant be sure of that =)
Hello Madamoiselle! Thanks for your visit to my site. I am truly gladdened by your presence there.
As of now, I am experimenting with 3 social networking sites with respect to my blogging. Twitter gives me more traffic, followed by Facebook. I’ve just started with Friendster. I am still sticking up in Friendster because it is still one of the big social sites in the Philippines. Many people in the province are signing up in Friendster.
As for blogging, I am thumbs up with Facebook. Hey, why don’t you join me in facebook?
That’s good–experimenting with 3 different networking sites. In that way, using them equally, you can actually weigh their differences.
I agree with you,one reason why people can’t delete their friendster accounts even if they have already switched to facebook is that they have contacts that use only friendster. You have a point there, people in provinces still prefer friendster. Maybe after a while, they’ll switch to facebook too.
I also love facebook for the ease in sharing videos, pictures, links, including blogs. I’ll be adding you in my list
yUP! Many of them are migrating to Facebook. The allure of Farmville is great.
Thanks for adding me in Facebook By the Way.
Try playing Restaurant City. I am addicted to it. =)
i was thinking of posting the same subject…. all my friends are saying “they already forgot that they have a friendster account.haha! Me too.
I think it is now the “Fall of Friendster”
We are all migrating in Facebook because it has better features than Friendster. The development of Facebook is fast. Facebook has “twitter-like” features, “myspace-like” features, Messaging is fast and more effective. You don’t need to use YM. You could chat with friends at once. It has everything you could think of. (well, only in social networking demographic)
It’s a good idea. post a blog with the same topic like this. I would love to comment on that blog and learn other ideas.
People naturally opt for higher forms of things. In this regard, Friendster can no longer accommodate the new consciousness of people, and so people migrate to Facebook
True! We have so many things learned in friendster that we now apply in facebook. Facebook is convenient to use and allows you to do more than just adding up friends.
The difference between Friendster and Facebook shows us how applications can evolve into more useful, more convenient sites. The good thing about this is people–the users–drive that evolution and the moment one application no longer satisfies our social needs, we abandon it.
I’ve been thinking of deleting my Friendster account for some time now. I realized I can keep it just to get in touch with people who have yet to discover the “joys” of Facebook.
Social network users change fast while friendster evolved quite slow. I am opening my friendster just to check my inbox (which is annoyingly flooded by app invites and spam messages) and not because I really want to update it. Deleting my friendster account never crossed my mind because, like what you mentioned, some important friendster contacts still haven’t joined facebook.
Friendster’s fall actually makes me sad. I have my facebook account and i have to update it constantly because that’s where most of my friends are. It makes me feel sad though that my fs buddies don’t visit their fs accounts. That’s where I started to learn blogging and making friends and im still visiting in regularly. Facebook is nice but it shouldn’t mean forgeting fs.
Before I am not interested in joining facebook because i already have other accounts like friendster, multiply, and plurk (not mentioning my dormant accounts hehe). But, of course, my friends who joined facebook and the applications they are playing lured me. so i joined facebook, and i am happy i did.
I am sad too that friendster turned out to be like that. Most of my true friends (because more than half of the people in my list are individuals I don’t know, shame? haha!) are not updating their accounts. Even bulletin posts are exactly the same ones posted 1-3days before. Friendster has lost or failed in engagement strategy. Aside from that, too many spam messages, virus-infected profile comments, and fake accounts are in friendster. Nobody likes that. Friendster has to address those problems first if it still wants to regain its reputation.
Facebook does give a lot of applications but it doesn’t bother you in choosing from the applications and yes nikki Facebook does have this sophisticated approach unlike Friendster which is more like the “jologs”..hehe!go nikki!
So play restaurant city with me, ace!! hahaha!
Oh I just love Facebook! What Friendster missed is the “socialization” part. Most of us, in the Web 2.0 era, want more interaction! Friendster has very minimal socialization mechanisms relative to Friendster.
You’re right,alps. facebook does more than just connecting people but it also allows individual to be constantly updated of others’ activities and other stuff.
i notice that facebook aps and the simplicity of the whole interface is what makes them success but if friendster improve their aps to and change the whole interface maybe friendster can back on track again.hehehehe!!!
Cool! I never realized these until I read your post.
I think these are the basic reasons why many chose to move to facebook and set aside friendster. But friendster has already changed, and I cannot tell yet if it’s successful.