Wednesday, April 27, 2011

End of An Era

Finally, after years of struggle, Friendster finally hangs its towel.


It was one of the pioneers of social networking and took the country by storm.  Suddenly, not only were people cam-whoring to death, they were posting pictures everywhere.




I got into the bandwagon because a friend urged me to it.  And like the multitude before me, and indeed after me, I was hooked; not only on the prospect of committing my life online, but on the perverse joys of peeking on other people's lives.  Suddenly stalking became the vogue.


Then, one day, they introduced the blogging feature, and I was intrigued.  Now they did not pioneer the blog phenomenon, but then the prospect of writing my thoughts did appeal to me.  And the idea of it's being secure, with only my contacts being privy to my thoughts gave me the needed push to give it a try.


Unfortunately, Friendster got so popular that everyone I worked with at the time already had an account and everyone had added me as a friend.  Suddenly my thoughts weren't so private anymore.  So when I got wind of this little-known site called Facebook, I latched on to it willingly to avoid the rush and crush of unwanted eyes looking onto my pictures and my activities outside of the office.  Around the same time, I heard of Blogspot and Multiply, and the idea of blogging anonymously then appealed to me, hiding my thoughts on plain sight, so to speak.


And when an officemate was called in by HR due to a blog she posted on her Friendster account, I knew I was correct in moving my thoughts to a different venue.  Although I still opine that I wasn't called in as well because of my penchant for writing in English, which most officemates had an aversion to.


And now, Friendster is closing, announcing to its (former) users to get their data off the site or forever loose it.


Finally, an ultimatum to once and for all migrate all my posts here.

6 comments:

  1. It does feel a tad weird that Friendster is going through a big reboot, but I'm glad that they've offered an easy way for users to retain their data. It's anyone's guess what the site is going to look like once they overhaul the service.

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  2. Shared histories eh. Blogged about Friendster too!

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  3. this is very nostalgic. nostalgic, indeed!

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  4. @ Rocky: At least they announced that they'd clear out the data and not just shut down without warning. A good marketing ploy as well, because it made the needed noise to advertise the soon-to-be rebooted site.

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  5. @ Mugen: Yeah, most, if not all, of us grew up with Friendster. :-)

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  6. @ PeriView: I do have fond memories I shared with Friendster. And now, I have to transfer them all to facebook and blogspot. haha! Too bad about my testimonies though..

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