- To save your reviews, go to your reviews page, http://www.friendster.com/review.php and cut/copy/save them locally on your computer to a Word document or text file

Again, don’t worry, we have a lot of good stuff coming up that will definitely make all of you smile.

Leading Payment Platform Provider to Enable Pre-paid Payments for Gifts, Goods and Games to Friendster’s 115 Million Users

KUALA LUMPUR, MALAYSIA – October 15, 2009 — Friendster, Inc., a top global web site based on traffic, today announced a global partnership with MOL AccessPortal Berhad (MOL), a leading payments provider leveraging a network of over 500,000 physical and virtual payment channels worldwide, to power the Friendster Wallet and a payments platform enabling micro-spending for over 115 million users on Friendster. The Friendster Wallet will support a variety of payment methods including pre-paid cards, mobile payments, online payments and credit card payments. The partnership will be celebrated by an official signing ceremony event in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia on October 15th, at the Berjaya Times Square Hotel & Convention Centre. Both the payments platform and wallet will initially launch in Malaysia, and will be rolled out within weeks throughout Southeast Asia and globally.

Friendster’s new payments platform and wallet are fundamental enablers for several new, additional revenue streams that result from establishing a transactional, financial relationship with its users. Shortly, Friendster will introduce virtual gifts, goods and games turning Friendster into an increasingly fun, online entertainment destination for users and their friends. These new entertainment offerings will be free to use and will also include optional premium elements that will generate significant new revenue streams – all of which are proven business and revenue models in Asia where Friendster is a leading web site. These new transaction-based revenue streams are in addition to Friendster’s current advertising and sponsorship revenue models that are an integral part of the business going forward and the user experience.

Since most youth consumers in Asia do not possess credit cards, the availability of alternate payment methods is essential for Friendster’s core user base to spend and transact within the community. The Friendster Wallet will offer critical alternative payment methods such as prepaid “top-up” cards, which can be purchased at readily-accessible convenience stores such as 7-Eleven. Users can buy a physical pre-paid card at thousands of offline locations throughout Asia with cash, and then enter the unique code from the card into the Friendster Wallet to receive the money as credit into his or her account. Friendster will store account balances and allow users to make purchases on Friendster.com for gifts, games, goods and services.

As part of the partnership, MOL will provide a variety of payment capabilities for Friendster users, including the virtual wallet, transaction management, pre-paid physical cards, support for multiple payment methods, and fraud management. Some of the payment methods MOL supports are operated by MOL directly, and some are provided via integration with third-party providers, like PayPal. The MOL platform is used today on a variety of large scale web sites and supports payments for transactions surrounding goods, services, gifts, online games, premium content, and e-commerce for applications and 3rd party integrations.

The Friendster Wallet will enable stored credit for each Friendster user in a currency called “Friendster Coins.” It can be spent throughout Friendster’s site for goods and services. The wallet will also include a non-monetary, marketing currency called “Friendster Chips” — funding incentive-based promotions, educating users on how the Friendster Wallet works (and how to give gifts to their friends), as a marketing tool to use in conjunction with special offers, and as a loyalty program to encourage continued prepayment and spending on Friendster.

“We’re excited to work with MOL, as they’re a payments platform leader throughout our major markets in Asia,” said Richard Kimber, chief executive officer at Friendster. “Just like PayPal eliminated ‘payment friction’ in the globally successful eBay marketplace for buyers and sellers, MOL will help Friendster deliver many new and important revenue streams by seamlessly powering micro-transactions for a wealth of premium entertainment and content features.”

“Through this strategic partnership, we’re enabling many users to pay for goods and services online, for the first time, and in doing so, creating a valuable transactional ecosystem on Friendster,” said Ganesh Kumar Bangah, president and chief executive officer at MOL. “We’re excited to extend our payments platform exponentially via this relationship, as both companies will benefit from the continuous loading and spending within the Friendster Wallet.”

For launch, the Friendster Wallet will support a variety of payment options including pre-paid payment cards; available throughout Southeast Asia, purchased at convenience stores such as 7-Eleven in Malaysia and Philippines, mobile phone shops such as Oke Shop in Indonesia, kiosks such as AXS in Singapore and cybercafe networks in Malaysia, Singapore, Thailand, Indonesia and the Philippines. The wallet will also support mobile payments from Singtel GX Credits and Indosat iPay. Online banking payments from Maybank, CIMB Bank, RHB Bank, Citibank Singapore, UOB and DBS will also be accepted as well as credit card payments from American Express, Visa and Mastercard.

Moving forward, the Friendster Wallet will be extended to third parties like partners, game publishers, application developers and others. These payment APIs will allow third parties to leverage Friendster Coins as a payment method or incorporate Friendster Coins in their games, applications, products and web sites.

The launch event in Kuala Lumpur will include a press conference, signing ceremony, and presentations by both Richard Kimber and Ganesh Kumar Bangah, CEOs of Friendster and MOL, respectively.

###

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. Headquartered in Mountain View, California, Friendster is backed by Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers, Benchmark Capital, DAG Ventures, IDG Ventures and individual investors. For more information, visit: www.friendster.com .

About MOL

MOL is a MSC Malaysia Status Company that operates and develops payment systems. MOL handles over 60,000,000 payment transactions a year with an annual payment volume of over USD200million. It leverages on a network of over 500,000 physical and virtual payment channels across more than 75 countries and linked to 65 banks in 15 countries worldwide to operate its key payment products, namely MOLePoints: an online micropayment system for content and services, MOLeTopUp: an electronic prepaid distribution infrastructure, MOL Freedom: a multi-application prepaid payment card, Gameshive: an online game payment aggregator, MOL Wings: a payment aggregator for wired and wireless internet service providers, MOL Zone: a multi-application mobile payment service, and MOL Safepay: an escrow-based payment system for micro-merchants.

MOL was recognized as one of Asia Pacific’s fastest growing technology companies in the Deloitte Technology Fast 500 Asia Pacific Awards in 2005 and 2006 and has won a Merit Award for the Best of E-Commerce Applications in the MSC Asia Pacific ICT Awards.

Media Contacts:

Jeff Roberto
Friendster
Tel: +1.650.237.1411
press@friendster.com

Halida Abu Bakar
MOL AccessPortal Berhad
Tel: +603.2082 1251

HOW TO DONATE:

RED CROSS
For logins from the Philippines:

- To donate to Red Cross, send RED AMOUNT to 2899. AMOUNT can be: 5, 25, 50, 100, 300. Ex. RED 100. Prepaid has a daily cap of P300 and Postpaid has a monthly cap of P300. No transaction fee.
- Donate to the Philippine Red Cross

For International logins:

- Donate to the Philippine Red Cross rescue and relief via Paypal.

SMART RELIEF
Via SMART Money
– SMART Money accountholders may help victims of typhoon Ondoy by donating to the PLDT Smart Foundation Inc. (PSF) Ondoy-Smart Money account. Text ONDOY to 270. Or go to your Smart Money menu > purchase > mpay > store code (ONDOY) > pay from > choose card > amount > confirmation (OK) > enter W-Pin.

Via RED CROSS
– SMART subscribers may help victims of typhoon Ondoy by donating to the Philippine National Red Cross via text. Text RED to 4483. Example: To donate P100, text RED 100 to 4483. Only donated amount will be deducted from your current load. No other charges applied.

DONATION IN THE FORM OF RELIEF GOODS may be turned over at the following SMART Wireless Centers: SM Muntinlupa, SM Bicutan, SM Sucat, Festival Mall, Ali Mall, Gateway, SM Fairview, SM North Annex, ATC South Mall, and Megamall. Selected PLDT business offices (locations to be announced) will also be accepting donated relief goods.

Relief Operation

1) SMART Libreng Tawag Centers at the following: Barangay Barangka Hall in Marikina City; Ever Gotesco Mall in Pasig City; and Cainta Municipal Hall. Affected residents may make calls for free and/or charge cellphones for free. Another Libreng Tawag Center to be set up ASAP in San Mateo, Rizal.

2) SMART Relief Goods Distribution Centers will be set up within the week right by the SMART Libreng Tawag Centers at Ever Gotesco Mall in Pasig City and Cainta Municipal Hall.

3) PLDT Medical Services at Barangay Barangka Hall in Marikina City provides emergency medical assistance. Additional medical assistance to be set up by Makati Medical Center and Cardinal Santos Memorial Hospital ASAP beside the other stations SMART Libreng Tawag Centers (Pasig, Cainta, and soon San Mateo).

4) SMART relief distribution will also be done within the week in Marilao, Bulacan and Arayat, Pampanga.

Let’s all pitch in.

1. Click the “Post Shoutout” link on your Home Page

2. Type in your latest shoutout. You can leave comments in the shoutouts of your friends and they can leave comments on yours as well!

You probably might be scratching your head on why a social network is actively promoting another social media tool. Isn’t it a conflict of interest since “technically” they’re our competitor? Are we shooting ourselves on the foot for this one?

Social Media is all about integration – maximizing the potential of all available tools to be able to build a strong and lasting relationship with our subscribers. Social Media sites are very similar to TV channels, users use more than one.

So to answer the question: Yes, Friendster is on Twitter. Follow us.

www.twitter.com/friendster

Friendster - New Search

Looking for new or lost friends – try our new search. Type in the search box, name, email or anything you know about the person and we’ll run our magic (in blink of an eye) to find them for you. That’s not all – you can narrow your results by selecting or removing any country, city, age and gender. And guess what, you can always search within your results!!

Try new search by clicking here or clicking ‘Search’ link on navigation menu. As always we are open for feedback and criticism – let us know your thoughts by leaving comments on this blog.

Tagalog Language

Great news! Friendster is now available in Tagalog language – change your language from the drop down language menu on top right. Invite friends and family who are familiar with Tagalog and missing the fun you are having on friendster.

Friendster is also available in Traditional and Simplified Chinese, Spanish, Korean, Japanese, Indonesia Bahasa, Vietnamese, Malay and of course English!

- Friendster Team

To leave a photo comment, simply browse to a photo from your phone, click on it, and look for the ‘Add a Comment’ field. Write your comment here and click ‘Post’. That’s it!

To add a skin, click on ‘Edit’ next to the Profile in the menu at the bottom of the screen.  On the next screen, click ‘Profile Skins’.  You can add a skin from there!

Visit Friendster Mobile

You can subscribe to friend requests, messages, comments, and bulletins. You can also text Friendster to post shoutouts, approve friend requests, send messages, post bulletins, and more.

It’s easy to subscribe, simply visit the mobile registration page and supply us with your mobile number and choose the alerts you wish to receive.

Subscribe to Text Alerts