Friendster Launches in Traditional Chinese

San Francisco (ots/PRNewswire) -

Friendster, Inc. (http://www.friendster.com) today announced that
Friendster.com is available in Traditional Chinese, allowing
Friendster users and visitors a choice of either English or
Traditional Chinese languages to navigate the site, enter content
and use Friendster's complete set of social networking features.

(Photo: http://www.newscom.com/cgi-bin/prnh/20070924/AQM221 )

Focused on helping people stay in touch with friends as well as
discover new people and things that are important to them, Friendster
is the third largest branded online social network in the world and
the largest social network in the Asia Pacific region. Friendster has
over 50 million registered users globally and over 27.4 million
monthly unique visitors as of August 2007.(1) In the Asia Pacific
region, Friendster has over 35 million registered users and 23
million monthly unique visitors as of August 2007.(1) Friendster is a
top-100 Web site in 17 countries on four continents, with active
users in more than 75 countries.

"Until now, Friendster.com has only been available in English, yet
Friendster is the No. 1 social network in the Asia Pacific region and
the 14th largest Web property in the world in terms of traffic," said
David Jones, vice president of marketing for Friendster. "Launching
traditional Chinese will help Friendster continue to grow rapidly. We
have a large number of Chinese-speaking users on Friendster that
would like the choice to enter their content and use the site in
Traditional Chinese. Additionally, countless users are looking
forward to inviting Chinese friends and family to join them on
Friendster," said Jones.

Friendster has implemented multi-language support on a single
domain -- Friendster.com -- to promote communication and interaction
among English and Chinese speakers globally. A large percentage of
friend networks on Friendster cross borders and continents, requiring
this new multi-language support to be implemented in a single, global
Web site and user experience. While other social networking sites
create separate sites for different countries and make it difficult
or impossible to have international friend networks, Friendster is
the first global online social network to employ this approach to
allow and encourage multi-cultural exchange and communications among
users around the world who are interested in doing so.

Users can permanently or temporarily set their language of choice
via links at the top right of every page of the Friendster.com Web
site or via the "Settings" link.

As part of this site enhancement, users can enter content in any
language into their Friendster profile and communications features.
This is important in the long term, as 69 percent of Internet users
in the world do not use English. Research reveals that there is a
segment of users that understand English well enough to navigate a
Web site, but still prefer to communicate on and off Friendster in
another language.

Traditional Chinese is a logical extension for Friendster as a
rapidly growing and global social network. Chinese is the second most
popular language on the Internet, representing 16 percent of all
Internet users, or 184 million individuals. Chinese has one of the
highest growth rates of the top ten languages used on the
Internet.(2) Friendster currently has millions of users across
regions where Traditional Chinese is used, such as Hong Kong and
Taiwan. Friendster also has users in most established overseas
Chinese communities such as those in the United States, Japan, Europe
and Southeast Asia (excluding Singapore).

"Finishing support for Chinese will expand Friendster's
addressable market by 50 percent to over half a billion Internet
users, or 47 percent of all Internet users globally," said Jones.

Top Ten Languages Used on the Web(2)
(Number of Internet Users by Language)
TOP TEN Internet Language
LANGUAGES % of All Users by Internet Growth on the
ON THE Internet Language Penetration Internet
INTERNET Users (Millions) by Language (2000 - 2007)
English 31.2 % 366 17.9 % 158 %
Chinese 15.7 % 184 13.6 % 470 %
Spanish 8.7 % 102 22.9 % 311 %
Japanese 7.4 % 86 67.1 % 83 %
French 5.0 % 59 15.3 % 385 %
German 5.0 % 59 61.1 % 113 %
Portuguese 4.0 % 47 20.2 % 525 %
Korean 2.9 % 34 45.6 % 79 %
Italian 2.7 % 31 52.9 % 138 %
Arabic 2.5 % 29 8.5 % 940 %
TOP TEN
LANGUAGES 85.0 % 998 19.3 % 204 %
Rest of World
Languages 15.0 % 175 12.4 % 440 %
WORLD TOTAL 100.0 % 1,173 17.8 % 225 %

About Friendster

With more than 50 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. Online adults, 18 and up, choose
Friendster to connect with friends, family, school, social groups,
activities and interests. Friendster prides itself in delivering a
clean, user-friendly and interactive environment where users can
easily connect with anyone around the world. Friendster has a growing
portfolio of patents granted to the company on social networking,
with more expected over the next several months. Headquartered in San
Francisco, California, Friendster is backed by Kleiner Perkins
Caufield & Byers, Benchmark Capital, DAG Ventures and individual
investors. For more information, visit: http://www.friendster.com.

(1) comScore Media Metrix, August 2007
(2) InternetWorldStats.com, June 2007

Web site: http://www.friendster.com

ots Originaltext: Friendster, Inc.
Im Internet recherchierbar: http://www.presseportal.de

Contact:
Lerin O'Neill of The Hoffman Agency, +1-408-975-3037,
loneill@hoffman.com, for Friendster, Inc. /Photo: NewsCom:
http://www.newscom.com/cgi-bin/prnh/20070924/AQM221, AP Archive:
http://photoarchive.ap.org, AP PhotoExpress Network: PRN14, PRN Photo
Desk, photodesk@prnewswire.com


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