Goodbye, Friendster...

Remembering My First Social Media

In the earlier part of year 2000, most of us, including myself, are having a hard time finding our long lost friends and getting acquainted again. We even got curious on how our elementary or high school sweethearts look after graduation.

We even wanted to have more friends even if we really don't know them personally. That was when before Friendster was introduced to us, Filipinos.

I was starting my digital life when I started Friendster in 2002. The primary reason for me to sign up was to get in touch and acquainted with my friends and classmates after a few years of non-communication. Not all have their cellphones still so its hard to keep in touch.

I got intrigued with some of my friends asking each other, "Add mo ko huh?", "Yun testi ko?" and "friendster ko si Joyce Jimenez!" are the most common lingo that they talked for several hours. So I joined up Friendster and got me my army of friends instantly.

I was hooked. I enjoyed giving testimonials, adding up friends and uploading my photos. Exchanging messages with my friends and checking their status are the highlights of my internet life whenever I logged in to it.

I also had my picture setup as Jim Morisson, Iori Yagami of KOF and even Superman. I shared my digital life with everyone. It was fun. Period.

Friendster vs. Facebook

But after a few years, the popularity of it died down as another social networking site emerged... its called Facebook. And just like that, Friendster was overthrown as the leader of social networking.

I still used with Friendster for a few months, thinking that the original is still the best. I even remained loyal to it. But several issues were still unresolved like the constant sending of update messages in my email making my inbox full.

It also spread and infected some spam to my testimonial pages and my inbox. And since Facebook gets more popular each day and I also need to promote 9MMDOTNET, I decided to sign up to it leaving my Friendster account hanging up. Just ignored it.

I still open up my Friendster from time to time. Checking my old pictures, testimonials and friends that are still not infected with the Facebook bug. I also check it out whenever I wanted to escape the Facebook abusers.

At least in Friendster, it won't send you notifications inviting you to a request in a game that I don't even play. Friendster, doesn't tag me with some promo ads and different sharing/tagging of pictures that I don't even want.

I even defended Friendster from several Facebook users who humiliated and criticized it for its jurassic interface and other issues. I say that for without Friendster, Facebook is nothing. To those people that had put down Friendster, STFU to all of you! For all we know you have used it even once.

I was hoping that the original social networking site would last forever in keeping some of my old pictures, but I guess nothing lasts forever.

Farewell...

In May 31, Friendster would cease its operation as a social networking site. According to the owners of the said site that they are changing the format but it will stop its social networking purpose. And they will be deleting all files including messages, testimonials and photos saved in their servers.

Me and my wife got sad when we heard the news from the TV. We are about to lose our connection from our friends that did not went over to Facebook. We are going to make some time to save our digital files saved in Friendster like our pictures, testimonials and messages. I'm not sure if I will be able to save all of our files, but I need to. 

Friendster made our memories saved digitally first hand. Its sad that its going to end this way because of the owner's decision. I would be hoping that we can still save Friendster but I guess its aleady too late. 

So goodbye, Friendster! It was a pleasure and an honor being part of you. You are still the original social networking site for me and my wife. 

Hasta La Vista, Friendster!

Kapish!


Credits to the original uploader/s of the picture/s shown on this post.