Friendster Launches in Traditional Chinese
25.09.2007, 10:53
San Francisco (USA) 25 September (PROTEXT/PRNewswire) - Friendster, Inc.(http://www.friendster.com) today announced that Friendster.com isavailable in Traditional Chinese, allowing Friendster users and visitors achoice of either English or Traditional Chinese languages to navigate thesite, enter content and use Friendster's complete set of social networkingfeatures.
(Photo: http://www.newscom.com/cgi-bin/prnh/20070924/AQM221)
Focused on helping people stay in touch with friends as well as discovernew people and things that are important to them, Friendster is the thirdlargest branded online social network in the world and the largest socialnetwork in the Asia Pacific region. Friendster has over 50 millionregistered users globally and over 27.4 million monthly unique visitors asof August 2007.(1) In the Asia Pacific region, Friendster has over 35million registered users and 23 million monthly unique visitors as ofAugust 2007.(1) Friendster is a top-100 Web site in 17 countries on fourcontinents, with active users in more than 75 countries.
"Until now, Friendster.com has only been available in English, yetFriendster is the No. 1 social network in the Asia Pacific region and the14th largest Web property in the world in terms of traffic," said DavidJones, vice president of marketing for Friendster. "Launching traditionalChinese will help Friendster continue to grow rapidly. We have a largenumber of Chinese-speaking users on Friendster that would like the choiceto enter their content and use the site in Traditional Chinese.Additionally, countless users are looking forward to inviting Chinesefriends 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 andChinese speakers globally. A large percentage of friend networks onFriendster cross borders and continents, requiring this new multi-languagesupport to be implemented in a single, global Web site and user experience.
While other social networking sites create separate sites for differentcountries and make it difficult or impossible to have international friendnetworks, Friendster is the first global online social network to employthis approach to allow and encourage multi-cultural exchange andcommunications among users around the world who are interested in doing so.
Users can permanently or temporarily set their language of choice via linksat 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 languageinto their Friendster profile and communications features. This isimportant in the long term, as 69 percent of Internet users in the world donot use English. Research reveals that there is a segment of users thatunderstand English well enough to navigate a Web site, but still prefer tocommunicate on and off Friendster in another language.
Traditional Chinese is a logical extension for Friendster as a rapidlygrowing and global social network. Chinese is the second most popularlanguage on the Internet, representing 16 percent of all Internet users, or184 million individuals. Chinese has one of the highest growth rates of thetop ten languages used on the Internet.(2) Friendster currently hasmillions of users across regions where Traditional Chinese is used, such asHong Kong and Taiwan. Friendster also has users in most establishedoverseas 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 marketby 50 percent to over half a billion Internet users, or 47 percent of allInternet users globally," said Jones.
Top Ten Languages Used on the Web(2)
(Number of Internet Users by Language)
Top 10 Languages
on the Internet
% of All Internet
Users
Internet Users by
Language (Millions)
Internet Penetration
by Language
Language Growth on the Internet
(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 10 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 globalonline social network. Friendster is focused on helping people stay intouch with friends and discover new people and things that are important tothem. Online adults, 18 and up, choose Friendster to connect with friends,family, school, social groups, activities and interests. Friendster pridesitself in delivering a clean, user-friendly and interactive environmentwhere users can easily connect with anyone around the world. Friendster hasa growing portfolio of patents granted to the company on social networking,with more expected over the next several months. Headquartered in SanFrancisco, California, Friendster is backed by Kleiner Perkins Caufield &Byers, Benchmark Capital, DAG Ventures and individual investors. For moreinformation, visit: http://www.friendster.com.
(1) comScore Media Metrix, August 2007
(2) InternetWorldStats.com, June 2007
Web site: http://www.friendster.com
Source: Friendster, Inc.
Contact: Lerin O'Neill of The Hoffman Agency, tel.: +1-408-975-3037,e-mail: loneill@hoffman.com, for Friendster, Inc.
Photo: NewsCom: http://www.newscom.com/cgi-bin/prnh/20070924/AQM221, APArchive: http://photoarchive.ap.org, AP PhotoExpress Network: PRN14, PRNPhoto Desk, e-mail: photodesk@prnewswire.com
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