Although Friendster has long been eclipsed in the U.S. by MySpace and Facebook, it has never gone away; it just traveled overseas, mainly to Asia where it continues to be popular. The social net is continuing its Asia/Pacific buildup with new offices in Singapore and Sydney, Australia. The company has also made some small hires in the Philippines, noting that this year, 80 percent of Friendster’s staff additions will be made in Asia.

Friendster has been one of the leading social nets—at least in terms of traffic—in Asia for the past few years. That said, it remains challenged when it comes to generating profit from advertising. The company hopes to change that with the expansion of its relationship with Pixel Media, which will handle ad sales for Friendster in Singapore, where the company claims 1 million monthly uniques. Pixel had already been working with the company in the Philippines, where it claims 3.6 million uniques. In indonesia, Friendster’s ad sales will be powered by Admax. On top of these additions, Friendster also released something of a wish list for other areas where it wants to staff up this year, including direct sales, product, engineering, operations, marketing and finance. Release

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