Friendster Launches Free Blogs Service Featuring Six Apart's TypePad Software
Friendster Makes it Easy for Its 16 Million Members to Blog With Friends
MOUNTAIN VIEW, Calif., March 3 /PRNewswire/ -- Friendster, the easiest way to keep in better touch with your friends, today announced the availability of Friendster Blogs, a free weblogging service that enables members to easily create and share online journals with friends. With Friendster Blogs, powered by TypePad, the award-winning hosted personal weblogging software from Six Apart, Friendster is now offering its users the richest, easiest set of features available for publishing, updating and sharing information on the Web.
Effective today, members throughout the U.S. and Canada have access to the online tools necessary to build travel logs, journals and digital scrapbooks, or to collect and share their personal interests, insight or commentary. In addition to its free service, three levels of advertising-free upgraded service are also available for a fee. The company plans to extend its weblogging service worldwide shortly thereafter.
"Blogging is core to our mission of making it easier to stay in touch and share experiences with your friends," said Scott Sassa, President and Chief Executive Officer of Friendster. "TypePad is the best blog service on the market, and this association with Friendster will make blogging easy for members -- one click from your Friendster profile links directly to your blog. Six Apart is the visionary of the blogging world, we couldn't have asked for a better technology provider with whom to work."
A single click from the home page initiates Friendster Blogs, with no confusing technology to learn, and no installation necessary. Members can include pictures and links in their blog, invite comments and categorize their posts. A library of templates and content options (such as color, border, font, etc.) are also available. Controls can even be put in place to allow members to communicate, privately or publicly, with the audience of their choice.
To support the growing interest in digital and mobile phone cameras, Friendster Blogs also supports mobile blogging. Sending an image to your blog is as easy as sending an email, and photo album templates automatically resize photos and make adding titles, captions, dates and other information simple.
"We are pleased to work with Friendster, a pioneer and leader in social networking," said Barak Berkowitz, Six Apart's chief executive officer. "The company's enthusiastic adoption of TypePad represents a strong endorsement for our software and services, and will introduce millions of people to weblogging. We are committed to delivering the best weblogging tools on the Web, and look forward to watching the Friendster Blog community take shape."
Pricing and Availability
There are no fees or registration required for members in the U.S. and Canada to begin using Friendster Blogs. For individuals seeking more advanced features, including multiple weblogs, an exclusive domain name, enhanced security options and more, Friendster will offer three upgrade packages. For more information and pricing on these options, visit www.friendster.com/blogs.php.
About Six Apart Ltd.
Six Apart Ltd., based in San Francisco, CA, is the company behind the Movable Type publishing platform, TypePad personal weblogging service and LiveJournal, an online community organized around personal journals. Founded by husband and wife team Ben Trott and Mena G. Trott in 2002 and funded by Neoteny Co., Ltd. and August Capital, Six Apart's sole focus is to create tools that enable millions of individuals, organizations and corporations to participate in the Web's full potential by publishing their ideas on the Internet with simple, yet powerful software and services. For more information about Six Apart, LiveJournal, TypePad and Movable Type, visit the Six Apart corporate weblog at www.sixapart.com.
About Friendster
Friendster is the leading online community for making new friends, communicating with existing friends, sharing information, organizing activities, finding dates, and reconnecting with lost friends. Friendster has received several industry awards, including Time Magazine's 50 Coolest Websites of 2004 and Coolest Inventions of 2003. Friendster is a privately- held corporation headquartered in Mountain View, California, and is backed by Kleiner Perkins, Benchmark Capital, Battery Ventures and individual investors.
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