Friendster got a lot of people hooked back in the day. With a user-friendly platform and quirky features to offer, it was very popular. Especially among Filipinos. In fact, it was the website that made the Philippines the social media capital of the world. The platform lured millions of Filipinos to use the internet and made internet cafes a good business investment.
But the popularity of Friendster did not last forever. In 2009 many Filipinos to switched to rising social media platforms like Facebook and Twitter. The following years saw the continued decline of Friendster until it finally closed in 2015.
Want to relive memories of the now defunct social networking site? Here’s a list of 8 things that popularized Friendster:
1. Mutual Friends
The “connection” feature of the Friendster user profile allowed you to establish unlikely connections among your circle of friends. It let you know your mutual friends with a user up to the third degree. This would allow you to connect with Bill through Emma who is friend of Jesse who is friends with Bill. Not only that, it will also scan your friend list and let you know all your possible connections with a user once you added him or her as your friend.
What “connections” used to look like:
Image source: angelcha.blogspot.com
2. Who Viewed My Profile
You never failed to check your “Who Viewed My Profile” notifications back in the day. This feature added the ‘kilig’ factor to your social media experience, and seeing your crush on this list definitely made your day.
This made stalking nearly impossible. On the other hand, it also was a way to build connections with strangers you had mutual friends with.
3. Shoutouts
Unlike Facebook posts or tweets, shoutouts only appeared on your profile. Your friends wouldn’t see it unless they visited your account (in which case you’d know who read your shoutout).
4. Bulletins (Public Survey)
Chain messages and public surveys were more fun back then. Friendster had a page where you could discover public surveys and blog stories that were entertaining to read. You would spend time reading survey answers of friends or answering the same questions. Survey challenges from friends often came with exciting (and personal) questions. These were a great way of getting to know each other more.
5. Testimonials
“Pahingi naman ng testi.”
Testimonials were those long, personal posts from friends telling how much they appreciated and valued your friendship. As a good friend, it was expected of you to reciprocate one.
Glitter Texts
The testi that once was just text became glittering and flashy. Glitter text was a hip option for sharing testimonials in Friendster. The shinier the text, the better.
6. Customizable Profile Background
Aside from sharing testimonials, shoutouts, and public surveys, you would also spend a lot of time personalizing your cursor and background profile. You would spend countless hours looking for websites that had cool profile backgrounds and cursor effects.
Friendster was very customizeable. You changed the color of the boxes under your profile picture and added eye-catching graphics for your profile background. It also was the reason why you knew a bit of CSS and HTML—so you could change the font color or font style of your page.
7. Featured Friends
Friendster allowed users to choose featured friends. These friends would appear on one’s profile and were usually the closest ones. Friendster provided users with only 6 slots, so you had to choose wisely.
8. Profile Background Music
Friendster also let you choose songs that would play whenever users visited your profile page!
Did we miss anything? Share us your thoughts by commenting below.