Everything looked good for Friendster, with the features and social networking tools it provided the online community; one day, MySpace came along, and Friendster suddenly became wallflower number one at the junior high dance.

A simple piece of fiscal reality, spun in down-home Mark Twain-speak, applies when discussing Friendster and MySpace: Friendster charged for upgraded blogging and MySpace didn’t. Now PaidContent has reported that Friendster, which once fancied itself a $200 million outfit, can’t even get a bite on a $5 million price tag.

The report claimed Viacom, lately an eager entrant into the online world where young people dwell, took a glance at Friendster and decided that $5 million was far too much to pay for the site, Staci Kramer wrote:

Soon after due diligence began, though, Viacom decided than the company sounded better than it actually looked and decided to pass.

When I asked one person familiar with the situation why not just buy it for that price, the response was it costs more than that a year to operate.
If Friendster has more to say about the situation, it doesn’t seem willing to say it to PaidContent. Kramer further wrote that “no comments” from the company sandwiched complaints about how “reporters constantly get information wrong about the company.”

May we suggest Friendster look into Microsoft’s relationship with Waggoner Edstrom? For all of Microsoft’s real and perceived flaws, the company communicates well enough with the media, and even CEO Steve Ballmer answers his email.

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David Utter is a staff writer for Murdok covering technology and business.