Friendster (the name is a pun on Napster) is a social network website. Every person who signs up defines his or her gallery of friends. The website then integrates these galleries, allowing a user to search through a list of their friends, their friend's friends, and so on. The premise is that in this way, one can interact with and meet people who are always a friend-of-a-friend-of-a-friend, and not a random, unknown person (such as may be found on instant messaging or IRC).

Friendster is based on the Circle of Friends technique for networking individuals in virtual communities and demonstrates the small world phenomenon.

Of course, as with any form of social network online, there are also members who are not who they appear. A significant number of people have created new profiles for bands, movie, television and book characters and activist groups as a form of online fan club. These accounts are often referred to as Fakesters, and the administrators of the site at first tried to discourage the practice, but as the service became more popular, official Fakesters were created by the Friendster staff to correspond with television and movie characters.

The website is currently running as a beta test as of September 2004. The slow response times that had plagued the site since its inception seems to have abated.

The company was founded by Jonathan Abrams in 2002 and is privately owned. It has become subject to some speculation as to investors and its potential for acquisition.

See also

• Thefacebook - a social networking site similar to Friendster targeted at college students

External links

• Friendster website (http://www.friendster.com/)
• Myspace - a service similar to friendster (http://www.myspace.com/)
• PixParty - a service similar to Myspace (http://www.pixparty.com/)
• Political Friendster (http://www.politicalfriendster.com/)
• Tribe.net - also in the social networking service space (http://www.tribe.net/)

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