MEDIA RELEASE PR35553
Friendster Launches 'Do It Yourself' Ads
MOUNTAIN VIEW, Calif., July 31 /PRNewswire-AsiaNet/ --
Small Businesses Can Now Buy Local Ads with Any Budget on Friendster
Friendster, Inc., a top 20 global website based on traffic*, today
announced the launch of Friendster "Do It Yourself" (DIY) Ads, a simple and
cost-effective way for local businesses to buy and launch highly targeted
ads with any budget on Friendster. DIY Ads are available immediately for
use by anyone, including Friendster's tens of millions of active users and
Internet users around the globe. Businesses and users can buy ads directly
With Friendster DIY Ads, businesses can promote products and services
to segments of Friendster's vast network of over 100 million users
globally, from over 75 different countries. Advertisers can target
thousands of Friendster users by utilizing a set of demographic targeting
data for their ads such as country, age, gender, and marital status.
Friendster DIY Ads can be purchased from any country globally and can
currently be targeted to the following countries; US, Canada, Singapore,
Indonesia, Malaysia and the Philippines. Ads can also be targeted to
states, cities and provinces in all countries except Singapore.
Advertisers have full control of the messaging and creative in their
ads, and ads can be optimized over time allowing advertisers to test
campaigns on limited budgets. Friendster DIY Ads support both graphical and
text ads, and all ads are in the standard 300x250 web ad size. Advertisers
can link their ads directly to a web site, blog, Friendster profile, or
anywhere online. Ads are purchased in a pay-for-impression or CPM model
which gives advertisers the ability to determine how much it will cost per
1000 impressions (or times) their ad will be shown by country on
Friendster. PayPal is the accepted method of payment for ads; advertisers
can use their credit card or debit card to add money to their PayPal
account.
Friendster DIY Ads complement the family owned business culture in Asia
where Friendster is a leading social network and has more than 75 million
registered users. Plus, Asia is the largest market of Internet users (Asia
has 41 percent of the world's Internet users, more than double the 19
percent from the U.S.), and Asia is the fastest-growing region in the
world.*
Once a Friendster DIY Ad campaign is launched, ads are strategically
placed and integrated into the Friendster web site and appear along side
content created by the Friendster community. This approach allows
advertisers to get their ads in front of users in the right places, without
disrupting the user experience. Advertisers have access to a performance
chart and a dashboard of metrics surrounding their campaigns. Metrics
include total impressions, total clicks, total dollars spent, and campaign
flight dates. Friendster does review all ads before they launch to ensure
they comply with the Friendster Advertiser Guidelines; see link
How to Create a Friendster "Do It Yourself" Ad:
A Friendster account is required to place an ad. To create a new
1. Log-in to Friendster
Go directly to the Friendster "Do It Yourself" Ad set up page:
2. Create your Ad
Click "Create Ad" and build a text or graphical ad. Script the ad
text, upload an image for graphical ads, and choose the dates when
the ad is to start and finish, and add a link/URL.
3. Choose your Budget
Enter ad campaign budget. Advertisers will not be billed for more
than the amount specified for the campaign. Once the country in
which to run the ad is chosen, advertiser will see what the cost
is per 1000 impressions of the ad in that country.
4. Select your Target
Choose country, age, gender, marital status, and category targets
for the ad.
5. Launch your Ad
Save the ad and deploy it on Friendster!
For more information, please visit the Friendster DIY FAQ page,
Richard Kimber, CEO of Friendster said, "Small businesses can now buy
ads to promote their products in a very smart and cost effective way
locally to thousands or millions of Friendster users. 'Do It Yourself' Ads
are integrated seamlessly into the Friendster user experience and community
which allow advertisers to reach their target audiences in much more
natural, and non-obtrusive way, we look forward to welcoming all the new
advertisers aboard."
Roy de Souza, CEO of ZEDO said, "ZEDO is excited to have collaborated
with Friendster on the configuration of their 'Do It Yourself' Ads built on
ZEDO's own self service platform. In this current economic environment
where social networks need to solve monetization challenges, ZEDO believes
self service is a great strategy. It increases revenue without additional
capex or cost of a larger sales force."
About Friendster
With more than 100 million members worldwide, Friendster is a leading
global online social network. Friendster is focused on helping people stay
in touch with friends and discover new people and things that are important
to them. Friendster is one of the best sites that allow people to
meaningfully participate with others in exciting and fun ways. Friendster
prides itself in delivering an easy-to-use, friendly and interactive
environment where users can easily connect with anyone around the world via
device. Friendster has a growing portfolio of patents granted to the
company on social networking, with more expected over the next several
months. Headquartered in Mountain View, California, Friendster is backed by
Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers, Benchmark Capital, DAG Ventures, IDG
Ventures and individual investors. For more information, visit:
About ZEDO
ZEDO, now in its 10th year, is the world's third largest ad serving
company and the largest independent ad server. ZEDO focuses on maximizing
revenue for web publishers. It sells behavioral campaigns for publishers,
offers a cutting edge behavioral technology platform for publishers with a
sales team, ad network optimization that calculates which ad network will
pay the publisher the most, ad serving in flash video players, a widely
acclaimed easy to use full ad serving platform and a new "Self Service
Platform built by ZEDO".
ZEDO is headquartered in San Francisco, California and has offices and
development centers in India and Russia. For more information about ZEDO
*comScore Media Metrix, Worldwide Data, March 2009
SOURCE: Friendster, Inc.
CONTACT: Jun Velasco of Friendster,
+63 2 750.7715 local 1304,
or Mobile,
+63 920.982.8730,
press@friendster.com;
or Jan Freeman of ZEDO,
+1-415-348-1975,
jan@ZEDO.com
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