Social networking site Friendster is going to get an overhaul under its new owner MOL Global. Commentators including the Guardian in the UK have reported that the site will become a games portal, putting it on less of a head-to-head footing with its main rival, Facebook.
You could predict that this will be the first of many such realignments. It is difficult to imagine Friendster (or Friendfeed before its acquisition by Facebook actually squaring up to the social networking giant in any serious way by now. Not that these people are bad at what they do, far from it; but by now there's a very clear market leader.
So Friendster has decided to move away from its core business of social networking and into the games market. MOL must be wondering what it bought - why buy a social media brand then use it for something else? It might just work. But other than Apple doing a sideways move from computing only into consumer electronics and music gizmos, it's hard to think of a successful example of a business so solidly in one area - consider the name, for goodness' sake - moving into another.
