U.S. Based Social Networking Site Friendster Reaches Japan, Korea

December 6, 2007 4:21 p.m. EST

San Francisco, CA (AHN) - Just a little over two months after its debut in non-mainland Chinese territories, U.S.-based social networking site Friendster has reached Japan and Korea. According to a Friendster statement, with the site's Asian foray, Friendster is now available in English, traditional Chinese, Japanese, Spanish and Korean.

The five tongues are the top languages on the Internet, representing 66 percent of Internet users.

Prior to its entry to Japan, the most popular social networking in Asia's most industrialized nation is Mixi, where membership is by invitation.

Tech-savvy Japanese, particularly the youth, will definitely welcome the entry of Friendster since it will not only expand their social reach, but also enhance their practice of the English language if they connect with English-speaking Friendster account holders in different parts of the globe.

On September 2007, Friendster expanded its commercial reach by launching a Traditional Chinese link on its main website. Traditional Chinese is the language used in Taiwan, Hong Kong and many Chinese communities overseas, excluding mainland China.

The link is found on its upper right corner of the webpage, recently expanded to five languages. When Friendster launched its Traditional Chinese link, company vice president for marketing David Jones said with its second language venture, it will be relatively easy to expand the site to more languages.

In just over two months, Jones' words were translated in the addition of two more characters on the website's upper right hand corner familiar to Japanese and Korean surfers.