Friendster

Friendster was an early pioneer in the area of Web-based social networking, founded in 2002 and hence preceding Facebook, Twitter, and even MySpace. However, it suffered rapid decline later when people deserted it for those other services, with the decline becoming particularly precipitous following an ill-fated 2009 redesign (though it was considered a dying site for years before that). Eventually it was changed to a game site, with much of the original user-supplied content tossed in the Friendster dumpster. It is now headqurtered in Malaysia and has mostly Asian users.

The name "Friendster" is a relic of the time it was founded, soon enough after the heyday of music-sharing program Napster that the "-ster" suffix was considered "cool".

Links

 * Wikipedia article
 * Friendster site (now a gaming site)
 * An autopsy of a dead social network
 * Paper cited in above article
 * How to Kill a Great Idea (Friendster founder discusses site after its failure)
 * Internet Archaeologists Find Ruins Of 'Friendster' Civilization (The Onion; video)
 * Archive Team Friendster project page
 * Archive Team Friendster dataset page