Before Facebook rolled around, there were already a couple of social media services that Filipinos got hooked on. Of course, with technology rapidly developing, newer and better social networking websites began to thrive while the old social media services began to gather dust. Take a short trip down memory lane with us as we revisit a couple of social media platforms that thrived in the Philippines.
Friendster
Back in the day, when we say everyone, we mean every single one had a Friendster account. If you didn’t have one, you would have definitely signed up for one at the end of the day to get what everyone was talking about. Friendster was a social media networking site that thrived massively in the Philippines. Founded in 2002 by computer programmer Jonathan Abrams, Friendster had about 8 million-plus users during its peak. One of the site’s most significant features was the Testimonials feature, commonly referred to as “testi” locally. It was a part of a user’s profile where people could write things about the person, whether it’s an essay-length entry of how they met, how they became friends, how grateful they are for being friends, or shorter entries of endorsing the person to be added by others. In 2011, Friendster relaunched as a social gaming platform and by 2015, suspended all its services citing lack of engagement in the community. Three years later, on June 30, 2018, it closed down as a company and eventually dissolved.
MySpace
Friendster
Back in the day, when we say everyone, we mean every single one had a Friendster account. If you didn’t have one, you would have definitely signed up for one at the end of the day to get what everyone was talking about. Friendster was a social media networking site that thrived massively in the Philippines. Founded in 2002 by computer programmer Jonathan Abrams, Friendster had about 8 million-plus users during its peak. One of the site’s most significant features was the Testimonials feature, commonly referred to as “testi” locally. It was a part of a user’s profile where people could write things about the person, whether it’s an essay-length entry of how they met, how they became friends, how grateful they are for being friends, or shorter entries of endorsing the person to be added by others. In 2011, Friendster relaunched as a social gaming platform and by 2015, suspended all its services citing lack of engagement in the community. Three years later, on June 30, 2018, it closed down as a company and eventually dissolved.
MySpace
Similar to Friendster, MySpace allowed its users to build profiles and expand their network of friends. MySpace used to be the number social networking website in the entire world, peaking in 2009. It wasn’t as popular as Friendster in the Philippines but still, many signed up for it to be able to connect with the popular users, such as musicians, bands, and artists, on the platform. MySpace is, surprisingly, still up and running despite the sharp decline of its user base as a result of migrating to Facebook.
Multiply
Multiply was a social media platform that had its users writing blogs, uploading photos and videos, writing reviews, and even selling merchandise. Locally, Multiply was another one of those social media websites that you had to have an account on, otherwise, you’ll miss out on the blog entries and photo galleries made by your friends. Multiply had a feature that allowed users to specify their relationship with their contacts and share or restrict content depending on how close they are. On August 9, 2012, Multiply announced that it was closing down its social networking platform and continuing as an e-commerce website instead. On May 31, 2013, Multiply ceased its operations and shut down entirely.
On June 10, 2014, it has filed for corporate rehabilitation to seek protection from its creditors. The company filed the petition for rehabilitation before the Pasig City Regional Trial Court (RTC). At that time, the website's social networking portion had a network of 18 million users. Liquidity problems, however, affected earnings. Sales declined from their peak of P20 billion in 2013 to just about P1 billion in July 2020.
It had suffered from a drop in new orders amid a slump in the social networking sector. Multiply also reportedly laid off some 12,000 workers on February 28, 2014.
Before Twitter, Plurk was the hot micro-blogging social network website. It featured horizontal timelines, with ‘plurks’ (user updates) posting in chronological order, and users may interact with each other underneath the thread of each plurk. Plurk is still up and running, with its users mostly based in Taiwan, its presence in the Philippines has long faded away when Twitter rose up in the social media ranks.
Google+
Google Plus (or Google+ or G+) was established to rival the more prominent social networks such as Facebook and Twitter. While it didn’t exactly catch a huge audience locally, there were people who preferred it over Facebook. It had a quieter community, and individuals were able to create smaller, refined friend circles in their accounts. In 2018, Google announced that it was shutting down the service for consumers, citing low engagement and security risks.
Do you remember using these social media sites when they were all active? Share your stories with us!
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