Friendster

Interesting NY Times article featuring Friendster. The company has not lived up to its hype as the de-facto social networking site. "Friendster, which endured three CEO's (one of whom was Tim Koogle, former Yahoo! CEO) during 2004, has seen a spate of senior executives depart in recent weeks. Just as troubling, a younger, flashier rival called MySpace has eclipsed Friendster, at least in the United States, among those in the most highly coveted 18 to 29 demographic. And Friendster loyalists have groused that the company has done almost nothing to enliven its site."

Company has not grown to its hefty $53M valuation (est.). They should have taken the Google acquisition offer. Comps in the space are roughly 3 - 5x (e.g. Classmates.com acquisition)

Interestingly, when you surf on their site and click on a user profile, sometimes you are led directly to an advertisement, the intended URL you clicked on. Isn't this considered click fraud?