theregoesdave

Yesterday Friendster announced the release of their new mobile web interface. They’re currently the number one social networking service in Asia. This move comes many months later than similar moves from Facebook and Myspace. They’re hinting that this is only the first release of a suite of new mobile web products that will collectively be called Friendster mobile.

I’m slightly surprised that they could build the largest social network in Asia without a mobile interface. Asia has a much higher percentage of mobile web usage than the US and much faster mobile connection speeds. This move may help to cement their lead in those markets where the mobile web is more mature.

It’s very interesting how regional many of the top players in the social networking industry have become. Orkut’s market share in Brazil, Bebo’s eminence in the UK and Friendster’s strong showing in Asia demonstrate the coming Global shift in the online industry. As usage and advertising dollars grow in various parts of the world, the existing services become very attractive to the top players like Google, Yahoo, Microsoft and AOL. You can see this trend starting with AOL’s recent acquisition of Bebo, which not only gets AOL into the social networking space in a major way, it will also help fortify AOL’s reach in Europe.

Disclosure: I work for AOL, but have nothing to do with the Bebo deal nor our online strategy. This is merely my industry analysis and speculation and should not be attributed to my employer.

Check out a screenshot after the jump or point your mobile browser to http://m.friendster.com.

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