The problem with companies who have built their business around free is that it is far from free to remain successful. The more success you have in delivering free, the more expensive it is to stay at the top. The more success you have, the more important it is to management to remain successful.  The more important remaining successful is to management, the more money they will spend, the more chances they will take, the more infrastructure they will build, the more people they will hire.  All of the things that will prevent them from staying lean , mean and flexible. All of the things that distract them from innovating within their core competency.

Mountain View, Calif. - Five months after raising $20 million in a new round of funding, online social network Friendster said that it has opened new U.S. headquarters in Mountain View, California. The company, which has the bulk of its users in the Asia-Pacific region, also said that it has opened new offices in Singapore and Sydney, with the latter serving as the base for company CEO Richard Kimber. Friendster said that the Mountain View office will house members of its executive staff, along with employees in all departments.

San Francisco - Online social network Friendster announced this week that it will now support applications developed for the rival Facebook Platform as part of its own developer program. With the move, Friendster claims to be the first major social network to deploy both Google's OpenSocial and Facebook's application platforms to its 80 million users.

San Francisco - Online social network Friendster announced on Tuesday that it has closed on $20 million in new funding, led by IDG Ventures, and named former Google executive Richard Kimber as its new chief executive.

San Francisco - Online social network Friendster on Tuesday announced the launch of its mobile version across Asia, where it is the leading social network. The company will add support for multiple languages in the coming weeks -- the first being Indonesian -- where over 8 million of Friendster's 70 million users reside. Over 50 million of Friendster's registered users reside in Asia.

San Francisco - Friendster on Tuesday announced the launch of its developer platform, which will initially offer over 180 applications for the online social network's 56 million global users. The company will allow developers to place ads and monetization features anywhere, and retain all revenue generated. The platform will also support applications developed for other social networks, as well as Google's OpenSocial APIs. Launch widgets on Friendster include a Chinese-language music discovery and sharing application from Yobo.com.

San Francisco - Friendster, which claims to be the top social network in the Asia Pacific region -- according to comScore Media Metrix data -- announced on Thursday that the service is now available in Japanese in Korean. San Francisco-based Friendster currently counts over 56 million users globally, 41 million of whom reside in Asia Pacific.

San Francisco - Following in the footsteps of rival social networks Facebook and, asl of last week, MySpace, Friendster announced on Thursday that it will launch a developer program next month to allow third-party applications to be added to its social networking service.

New York - Online social network Friendster said this week that it has partnered with digital music retailer AmieStreet.com to provide live streaming webcasts from the week-long CMJ Music Marathon in New York. Powered by Xanga TV, performances from artists including Datarock, Anathallo and Samantha Jones will be streamed live from their Friendster Fan Profiles.

San Francisco - Online social network Friendster announced on Tuesday that it has launched a version of its site in Traditional Chinese. The company said over 35 million of its 50 million registered users reside in the Asia Pacific region, and that 23 million of its 27.4 million unique users in August 2007 came from that part of the world.

New York - Online social networks Facebook and Friendster this week both announced plans to begin offering users the ability to post free classifieds ads on their respective networks.

San Francisco - Online social network Friendster announced this week that it has been granted its third social networking-related patent, this time for a "system and method for managing connections in an online social network."

San Francisco - Online social network Friendster announced on Wednesday that it has signed a new, multi-year agreement with Google to provide search and keyword advertising on its site, replacing previous partner Yahoo.