Friendster was considered the top online social network service until around April 2004 when it was overtaken by MySpace in terms of page views, according to Nielsen Online. Friendster has also received competition from all-in-one sites such as Windows Live Spaces, Bebo, Yahoo! 360, and Facebook. Of late, newer websites like hi5 are posing new competition for Friendster.
Google offered $30,000,000 to buy Friendster in 2003, but was turned down.
Friendster was funded by Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers and Benchmark Capital in October 2003 with a reported valuation of $53 million.
In April 2004, John Abrams was removed as Chief Executive Officer and Tim Koogle took over as interim CEO. Koogle previously served as President and CEO at Yahoo!. Koogle was replaced by Scott Sassa in June 2004. Sassa left in May 2005 and was replaced by Taek Kwon. Taek Kwon was succeeded by Kent Lindstrom, after a recapitalization by Kleiner and Benchmark that valued Friendster at less than one-twentieth its valuation in 2003.
Friendster's decision to remain private instead of selling to Google in 2003 is considered one of the biggest blunders of Silicon Valley, the Associated Press claims.
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