Friendster Network Grows in Popularity
Christian Lesstrang didn't know a soul in Chicago after moving from San Francisco.
So he turned to Friendster.com, a Web site that owes its rapidly growing popularity to a simple but effective formula. Unlike dating sites that disseminate profiles of people looking to meet others, Friendster lets people network only with their friends' other friends ? and those people's friends as well.
Browsing through the hundreds of people in his Friendster network, Lesstrang, 32, came across a few in Chicago. He e-mailed them, told them how they were connected and asked if they'd be interested in meeting up. Within a week in his new city, Lesstrang had some get-togethers, and now he has met about 10 people he regularly sees.
"You meet friends and there's really no expectations or anything weird about that," Lesstrang said. "It's just going through life, except through a referral network."
One year after being launched by software engineer Jonathan Abrams, Friendster has attracted a healthy buzz and 1.3 million users ? despite no advertising and being officially only in beta, or test mode. The company has spent $250,000 getting started and operates out of a suite in Sunnyvale, Calif., with a staff of just seven.
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