Talk:Friendster

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The main reason for its demise

Was that it wasn't American and the USA has to control information. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 31.76.131.114 (talk) 10:20, 18 October 2018 (UTC)

Check the 2014 talk archive, while this has of course been erased by Wikipedia's deletionists, Friendster is perhaps the most prominent example of a promising web site that failed because it was too slow. VC investment was followed by ousting the founding talent, and the board focused on deal making while ignoring the warnings that people weren't going to stay with a site that at its worst took literal minutes to log in to. Its object lesson is one reason Zuckerberg kept control of Facebook.

However all that happened while it was still a privately held American company, that it was sold off to an Asian company in 2009 for a fraction of what it had been worth is an endgame detail not relevant to its initial decline and fall. Hga (talk) 12:33, 8 March 2019 (UTC)

n, h.jkv k/h 69.58.59.194 (talk) 16:34, 10 March 2022 (UTC)

Correct Hrs, in all respects. I really don't like that the company's U.S. founding have been completely erased from this article. Lexein (talk) 22:07, 27 June 2019 (UTC)

Napster

Was it really named after Napster? Wouldnt it be better to just say it's friend + -ster? Perhaps a tribute to Napster helped them choose the name, though. —Soap— 15:04, 10 September 2023 (UTC)

Friendster rising from its grave

Does anyone noticed that the website rose from it's grave? It's now accepting emails for the waitlist. However, DO NOT use personal email as it might be a trick. Kurt R.✉ 01:08, 7 November 2023 (UTC)

• Seems like it updated the UI and the company is "Friendster Labs Inc." and I made a screenshot of how it looks like and uploaded it to Imgur. Kurt R.✉ 19:05, 6 January 2024 (UTC)

Hello,

I hope to provide some suggestions. It seems the location and company information were recently changed, but I have not found credible sources confirming the existence of "Friendster Labs, Inc." in Dover, US.

Please revert these changes for now, unless credible sources can be provided. I have included some research below indicating the last known company tied to Friendster was Friendster Sdn. Bhd., a subsidiary of MOL Global incorporated in Malaysia which dissolved in 2015.

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Searching government databases, there are no active companies registered as Friendster/Friendster Labs/Friendster Inc [1], besides the original Friendster Inc with the last news in 2006.

The contact address listed on the current Friendster Terms of Service goes to a Staples store in Delaware. The number seems to be a mail service.

The last known company was Friendster Sdn. Bhd., incorporated in Malaysia in 2011. It dissolved in 2015 but kept the Friendster name and company registration number 0950151-H. Records show it is still registered to them. Related link to prove Friendster Sdn Bhd is Friendster here. (not sure if it's important or not)

While the Friendster trademark registration expired in Sep 2023, the listing still shows as registered and active. Trademarks can be renewed within a grace period, which explains the new application by "Friendster Lab, Inc" in Dec 2023. This is pending as of Feb 29, 2024.

Given the website is now collecting emails via a waiting list of unknown purpose, there are concerns around security and phishing. Recent domain history shows the site became active again on Apr 1, 2023. I could not find official confirmation of the new owners.

So in summary, while someone purchased the friendster.com domain and applied for a new trademark, there is no credible information on the new company behind it. I suggest updating the history with its recent reappearance while keeping the infobox with the last confirmed location and ownership details.

I copy pasta this message with chatgpt helping me out to keep the links in order, so I do apologise if I sound robotic a tad. Here is pix dump in imgur if you think it's useful.

Thank you for considering my input as I am not sure how to write it accordingly.

since i found the TOS link from the wiki, it's not shown on the main page of the current domain. same goes with the privacy page. it stated a Mike Carson in the document. both TOS and Privacy page was updated on Jan 3, 2024. most pages mentioned here has been archived for easier citation later. nMyghet (talk) 12:57, 29 February 2024 (UTC)

just wanna add that the login page's html coding is quite..interesting. their approach to form submission handling by throwing an intentional error might indicate behaviour for specific purpose(s). until we know why they provide the login access and it's not malicious intent, it's best to not submit anything personal or even your old friendster account/pwd

main website leads to getlaunchlist.com referral link. there's a base code in the coding, but you pretty much can just add any email to the end and it will auto-generate a referral link...which i think not very secure-like? need to know getlaunchlist.com relations with new friendster.com owner(s).

example: https://getlaunchlist.com/s/XXXxxx/test@test.com where XXXxxx is the code found in the main friendster page now. nMyghet (talk) 13:41, 29 February 2024 (UTC)

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A quick WHOIS search at whois.com today tells me the current registrar for the friendster.com domain is "Porkbun.com", a domain registar with headquarters in Sherwood, Oregon, USA...

I'm not US-ian so I'm not familiar with the city/area/place; and also Porkbun has a policy of hiding their registrar clients behind "Private By Design, LLC"...

- https://www.whois.com/whois/friendster.com

- https://porkbun.com/about

--Ferdi Zebua (username: Lemi4) (talk) 10:51, 29 January 2024 (UTC)