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Friendster Relaunches

friendster.com

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Re: Friendster Relaunches

#21

Post by ignifero »

r00fus wrote: post #17
ignifero wrote: post #8

So, they lost the social graph game and now focus on the popular social game market. It's what zynga failed to do until now. There's huge audience and the monetization is guaranteed if they enroll virtual currency. if they can prove they can gain traction and provide a platform that is easy to convert to, I'm game.

Wait, but Facebook credits are virtual currency that are leveraged by Zynga. Without a "farmville" styled killer app, Friendster isn't going very far.

They should have launched with a big social game player (obviously not zynga, who has an agreement with Facebook). However there are thousands of independent developers, and remember there were many killer apps before zynga came along.

Re: Friendster Relaunches

#22

Post by rmason »

Why not just promote the new Friendster as a place to play games and soft pedal the whole social networking past?

Would the site be more successful if they'd chosen a different domain name?

Re: Friendster Relaunches

#23

Post by mootothemax »

rokhayakebe wrote: post #13
iMark wrote: post #2

"Join Friendster Today - Login with Facebook" I'd like to have been in the room when that discussion took place.

That was a smart move. Their product is different and does not compete with Facebook.

That was a smart move. Their product is different and does not compete with Facebook

Sadly implemented dumbly; why on earth would I give them offline access to my Facebook account? Or, rather, I understand why, but don't understand why they won't let users try the service first, and then show them what they're missing out on by not granting offline access. Bizarre.

Re: Friendster Relaunches

#24

Post by jc4p »

rmason wrote: post #22

Why not just promote the new Friendster as a place to play games and soft pedal the whole social networking past? Would the site be more successful if they'd chosen a different domain name?

If they had chosen a new domain name they'd have nothing to separate them for the failing Hi5.com, which went from attempting to be a social network to doing the exact same thing this new Friendster is doing (logging in by Facebook and playing games).

Re: Friendster Relaunches

#25

Post by jc4p »

mootothemax wrote: post #23
rokhayakebe wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That was a smart move. Their product is different and does not compete with Facebook.

That was a smart move. Their product is different and does not compete with Facebook Sadly implemented dumbly; why on earth would I give them offline access to my Facebook account? Or, rather, I understand why, but don't understand why they won't let users try the service first, and then show them what they're missing out on by not granting offline access. Bizarre.

It also requires access to share on your Facebook wall without notifying you, which it seems to do after each game you try out on the website. Removing specific permissions from an application on Facebook is a much harder task than it seems to be. Also, if it requests so much information from Facebook, why does it still require me to type in my birthday and upload a picture of myself?

Re: Friendster Relaunches

#26

Post by far33d »

jc4p wrote: post #25
mootothemax wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That was a smart move. Their product is different and does not compete with Facebook Sadly implemented dumbly; why on earth would I give them offline access to my Facebook account? Or, rather, I understand why, but don't understand why they won't let users try the service first, and then show them what they're missing out on by not granting offline access. Bizarre.

It also requires access to share on your Facebook wall without notifying you, which it seems to do after each game you try out on the website. Removing specific permissions from an application on Facebook is a much harder task than it seems to be. Also, if it requests so much information from Facebook, why does it still require me to type in my birthday and upload a picture of myself?

If they don't have a button that says "share" that you click before it posts that's a TOS violation and will likely be changed quickly if the FB compliance team is paying attention.

Fact of the matter is that install rates often don't change much when you ask for additional permissions. Most users don't care. There's often no compelling reason to build out complicated permissions flows when the standard "ask for it all up front" works just fine.

Re: Friendster Relaunches

#27

Post by esrauch »

adamokane wrote: post #19

Is there a benefit to using the Friendster brand? Isn't it universally known as could-have-been social network? Why not just use whatever their resources are to start something fresh?

Simple name recognition is enough to get a lot of people to trust your site. People are a lot more willing to "log in with facebook" on frindster.com than they are on "Hi5.com".

Re: Friendster Relaunches

#30

Post by samd »

far33d wrote: post #26
jc4p wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It also requires access to share on your Facebook wall without notifying you, which it seems to do after each game you try out on the website. Removing specific permissions from an application on Facebook is a much harder task than it seems to be. Also, if it requests so much information from Facebook, why does it still require me to type in my birthday and upload a picture of myself?

If they don't have a button that says "share" that you click before it posts that's a TOS violation and will likely be changed quickly if the FB compliance team is paying attention. Fact of the matter is that install rates often don't change much when you ask for additional permissions. Most users don't care. There's often no compelling reason to build out complicated permissions flows when the standard "ask for it a…

Have a source for that information? Facebook's own API documentation page says: "There is a strong inverse correlation between the number of permissions your site requests and the number of users that will allow those permissions. The greater the number of permissions you ask for, the lower the number of users that will grant them; so we recommend that you only request the permissions you absolutely need for your site."

https://developers.facebook.com/docs/guides/web/#login

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