This could be attractive to Facebook developers for a number of reasons, especially considering the negative impact that the site’s recent re-design is having on usage for some applications. For the most part, Friendster’s audience has little overlap with that of Facebook – only 22% according to the companies – meaning there are about 45 million potential new users for developers to target. Further, for the moment the Friendster developer community is far less competitive than that of Facebook – its directory features only about 600 applications as opposed to the tens of thousands that have already been built for Facebook.
To that end, developers would be well served to utilize Facebook’s tools for translating applications into foreign languages as part of their effort to gain Friendster users. Friendster does not currently offer its own translation tools, though Jeff Roberto, the company’s Director of Marketing says that “If the application currently works in multiple languages and has been translated we will support it.”
As for monetization, Friendster gives most of the control to developers. In a statement, the company writes: “Ads are allowed anywhere in an application, including the user profile page, providing the potential for a dramatic increase in page views and corresponding ad revenues.”
Meanwhile, this launch would seem to indicate that Facebook will continue to push its own platform and steer clear of joining Google’s OpenSocial for the foreseeable future. To enable developers to port their Facebook applications, Friendster made use of the open source version of the Facebook platform known as fbOpen.