Friendster to send Text Alerts

Regional - Friendster is set to launch Friendster Text Alerts in Singapore, Malaysia, Indonesia and the Philippines, offering advertisers a new platform to reach audiences via mobile advertising.

Director of marketing and PR for Friendster, Jeff Roberto, declined to reveal details on the advertising components of the new offering saying more would be known in the "coming weeks".

Friendster Text Alerts will be the company's second mobile offering complementing its mobile site, m.friendster.com, which launched in May. The new offering means Friendster users can subscribe to receive text message alerts for friend requests, new messages, and comments, among other things. Users will also receive SMS text message updates on activity among their network of friends.

"Recent studies have shown that about 90% of Asia's mobile phone subscribers use SMS text messaging, and some of the highest per subscriber usage of text messaging is in countries in SE Asia. It's only natural to combine the most popular mobile feature -- text messaging -- with the most popular social network in Asia," said David Jones, vice president of global marketing for Friendster.