Social media has become an important part of the life of people. It is the best and most used means of Entertainment and communication. People can easily engage with anyone in the world, which has increased the friendliness and engagement among different parts of the world.
Other than this, all of them have much other importance in society as well. Examples of such social media platforms are Facebook and Friendster. Both of them are similar in many aspects, which makes it difficult to understand them, especially when many are not aware of Friendster. Following are important information and differences between both Facebook and Friendster that will help understand them.
Facebook vs Friendster
The main difference between Facebook and Friendster is that Friendster was developed earlier, whereas Facebook was developed after a long time to have features that are lacking in Friendster. Facebook is more loved and used by people. In fact, Friendster is closed by the company due to its less usage and lacking behind in social platforms, and it was taken over by other companies. Facebook is better as it is easier to use. It has many advanced features (including chatting, blocking, video calling, etc.), while Friendster has relatively less advanced or better features. Other than these, Facebook and Friendster can be differentiated on the basis of dominating areas, ranked by Alexa, security, etc.
Facebook is a social media platform that has a website and application that can be used on any device. It was founded in 2004 by Mark Zuckerberg, Chris Hughes, Dustin Moskovitz, Eduardo Saverin, Andrew McCollum. It has the feature of uploading pictures, videos, etc. it can be used for communicating with people that might live in the opposite or any part of the world.
Friendster was a social media platform. It is among the few platforms that started the trend of social media and helped people to stay in touch with their friends and family. It was mainly used in Asia only, and it has features that provide access and area to the subscribers to engage with new people. It failed to meet the requirement with changes in trends among its subscribers and hence finally shut down.
Comparison Table Between Facebook and Friendster
| Parameters of Comparison | Friendster | |
| Subscribers | More | Less |
| Dominating Area | Worldwide | Asia |
| Ranked by Alexa | Higher | Lower |
| Background | Less colorful | More colorful |
| Security | Higher security | Lower security |
What is Facebook?
Facebook is a platform that gives access to people to engage with others. There are many advantages of this platform which is mentioned below:
- Better Socializing: this platform has the basic motive of providing a platform where people or subscribers can socialize with each other by sharing their viewpoints, images, videos, and many other things.
- Communication: it also has the feature of chatting and video calling. This increases the chance of having more understanding of people from different cultures and places.
- Business Promotion: earlier it used to be the platform for entertainment purposes, but nowadays it serves more purpose than this, it is used for promoting different business and not only this there many small businesses that are being run on this platform where interested people can contact the owner of the page or business and buy goods and services.
- Unlimited Entertainment: there is no limit to the Entertainment on this platform which means a person can use this platform all day and still will get new content as it shows the content uploaded by the worldwide population. Subscribers can choose which type of content they are interested in and hence can see that.
- No cost: the best part of this platform is that it is free of cost, which means not a single penny has to be spent on using any feature of this platform.
Despite its advantages, it should be used with caution so that it won’t become a threat or liability.
What is Friendster?
It was a social media platform that later on changed into a social network game due to a lack of audience or subscribers. It was a platform where different subscribers could upload their pictures and engage with others, which increased the engagement of different people from different parts of the world.
People have to make an account on this platform to use them, and this can be done by using the email address of the user. It was easy to make this, and therefore it attracted many people.
After the introduction of the foundation of many other similar platforms, it failed to attract or sustain the remaining subscribers. Therefore, it goes shut down soon.
Although pictures of subscribers can still be recovered by them just entering their account detail and the email they used for sign in. And there are not many people who use or even are aware of this platform.
Main Differences Between Facebook and Friendster
- Both Facebook and Friendster have many subscribers, but if the comparison is made, Facebook is far more popular among people than Friendster. Therefore, Facebook has more subscribers (people who subscribe or have an account) as compared to Friendster that has fewer subscribers.
- As mentioned above, Facebook is more popular due to its reach and easy access. It is used worldwide in many areas of the world, whereas Friendster is now closed, and earlier it was only dominated in the area of Asia.
- All the social applications get rated by Alexa, and on this list, Facebook is on top, whereas Friendster is far behind it. It is due to its preference by more people; hence it is ranked in between the first five positions always on the list, whereas Friendster was ranked at a position far behind it.
- Both of these applications have a colorful background, but if compared, Friendster has a background in many colors making it more vibrant and beautiful, whereas Facebook has only 2 or 3 colors of the background.
- In terms of the security of the subscribers, Facebook is more secure because anyone can block the other subscribers if the person is not feeling safe from him/her while no such option is available in Friendster, hence it is less secure than Facebook.
- Facebook has more advanced and several advantages when it comes to applications. For example, it has a chatting option which is very useful in engaging with different people, whereas Friendster has less advanced or beneficial applications or features.
Conclusion
Therefore, there should not be any confusion between Facebook and Friendster. They both are similar as both of them have the feature of uploading photographs of the subscriber, people who have an account on the platform with the help of email or phone numbers, etc.
But except for them, there aren’t many advantages, and somehow Friendster failed to meet the requirement of their subscribers, which led to a loss in interest, and in the end, they have to be closed. The most important thing in the internet world is constant innovation and up-gradation that will make them more attractive and interested unless they won’t be successful in the market.
Except these, other social media platforms might have additional features such as Instagram, Twitter, Snapchat, etc.
References
- https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/abs/10.1002/abc.219
- https://books.google.com/books?hl=en&lr=&id=17SpCgAAQBAJ&oi=fnd&pg=PR4&dq=Facebook+and+Friendster&ots=nTAGAgQh_R&sig=Z–5KT8D2V8Wb8fei_K7VXgImww
- https://researchrepository.rmit.edu.au/esploro/outputs/bookChapter/Becoming-and-Belonging-Performativity-Subjectivity-and/9921903706801341
- http://repository.um.ac.id/11014/
- http://repository.um.ac.id/11014/