FILIPINOS COMPRISE 1/3 OF FRIENDSTER END-USERS

Erle Frayne Argonza y Delago

I just came from the gym at this moment, and surfed a bit before my lunch break. Among the first news that greeted me was this one about Filipinos comprising 1/3 of Friendster users.

Let me quote the news below:

“Filipinos still make up big chunk of Friendster users,” Erwin Oliva, INQUIRER.net, First Posted 09:39:00 05/22/2008

MAKATI CITY, Philippines — A third of the traffic going to social networking site Friendster are contributed by Filipinos or at least the Internet Protocol (IP) addresses are from the Philippines, an executive told INQUIRER.net.

Of the 39 million unique visitors recorded in March 2008, about 13.2 million unique users are from the Philippines, said David Jones, vice president for global marketing of Friendster, in an interview.

Jones said that if there are 14 million Internet users in the Philippines as of 2007, about 98 percent are going to Friendster.

These figures indicate that Filipinos make up the biggest population of Friendster users in the world, even surpassing the United States, where the service was originally launched.

Such numbers have prompted the social networking site to consider the Philippines as a major market for its services, including its mobile service, Jones said.

Typically, Filipino Friendster users are in the age range of 16 to 30 years old, with 55 percent of them being female. {End of quote)

Whether the news is good or bad is something to reflect on. For someone like me, who’s among the 13.2 million users from the Philippine end (there are also Filipinos overseas, remember?), the news is worth noting.

It means, first of all, that millions of fellow Filipinos now surf the internet, whether they their own DSL or wireless at home, or access cyberspace through commercial internet shops. This is already good news.

The 2^nd point to observe is that Filipinos do love to connect to people. We are a relationship-conscious people. And so our social networking is indicative of our contribution to make a high-tech world into one that is ‘high-touch’ at the same time.

I just hope that the Friendster company will provide some dividends to Filipino end-users for this meritorious behavior (as far as the company is concerned). Some other sites provide dividends based on the traffic of any user’s site alone, so why can’t the Friendster do the same.

Failing to do so, there would be reason later for the smarter newcomers (young ones) to skirt off Friendster altogether and proceed to the more reward-oriented sites. It’s already happening.  May the tribe of these smarter ones increase.

[Writ 22 May 2008, Quezon City, MetroManila]

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Tags: advertising, communications, Erle Argonza, Filipinos, Friendster, Philippines, social networking

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