Friendster steps up Asia guard

Regional - Friendster has moved to defend its turf from the onslaught of in-vogue social networking site, Facebook, with the hire of Foad Fadaghi as director of marketing research APAC while promising to also appoint a marketing manager based in Singapore to handle its Fan Profiles offering.

The company is also on the hunt across the region for developers to register with Friendster. According to its marketing and PR director, Jeff Roberto, who is in town for Google's Developer's Festival (DevFest), the company currently has around 5,000 registered developers globally and is looking to beef that figure up to around 10,000 "very soon."

On Fadaghi's appointment, Roberto said the role was "more analytical" and would help support VP of global marketing, David Jone's role as well as his own marketing / PR role across APAC.

Fadaghi, formerly the technology editor of Business Review Weekly, will be based in Friendster's regional HQ in Sydney which is an office that has taken on an increased importance to the company given the recent appointment of Sydney-based Richard Kimber as CEO.

Roberto says the company has already "looked at" several candidates for the Singapore-based marketing manager job.

Friendster is the top social network in Asia according to Google Analytics and Friendster internal data.