CORP TALK: Malaysia-based MOL Global Pte. Ltd. will be buying US social network company Friendster Inc., which operates Friendster.com, according to a PRNewsWire report.

MOL Global is an affiliate of online payment solutions provider MOL AccessPortal Berhad, whose principal shareholder is Tan Sri Vincent Tan, the Chairman and CEO of Berjaya Corporation Berhad.

According to the release, following the acquisition, the operations of MOL and Friendster will be combined to create Asia’s largest end-to-end network for content, distribution and commerce. This will pair MOL’s offline retail channel partners and payment platform with Friendster’s online network and user base in Asia.

HWM Indonesia

HWM Indonesia: Finally, Friendster will be able to monetize its social network platform through the additional layer from MOL.

A social media network alone will not generate any revenue, let alone a very regionalized social media network like Friendster.

A helping hand from a strong regional player with its retail channel distribution will add value to Friendster and complete the whole solution.

Navin Danapal, Editor, HWM Malaysia

Navin (HWM Malaysia): Berjaya’s (which owns MOL) news about buying Friendster comes at a time when Facebook (probably Friendster’s greatest rival) recently announced forced public exposure (by default) for its public members posts to compete with Google’s real-time search with Twitter.

It would seem privacy is the Web’s next killer app - not protecting it, but exploiting it for the sake of search coverage.

Facebook’s comment that “this is the way the world is moving” conflicts with the fact Facebook is itself the determiner of world privacy when it’s the biggest social networking site.

With the current bad rep Facebook is getting for its new policy, one might wonder what Berjaya’s direction would be for its newly-acquired Friendster with its massive database of users.

If Berjaya wishes to tap into the online Web-based gaming market via the new Friendster as well, as how Facebook is doing with apps like Farmville, one might also wonder if Berjaya will impose strict measures not to exploit this psychological addiction at the expense of more ad revenue by its partners.

There are a lot of questions to be answered here when the privacy and data of millions of users are at stake. Here are recent blog comments from ReadWriteWeb and TechCrunch respectively regarding privacy changes and social network games that may be relevant.

MOL will definitely leverage on its network of over 500,000 physical and virtual payment channels across 75 countries worldwide to collect payments for content and services.

Its core markets are Malaysia, Singapore, Indonesia, Philippines, Thailand and India. With relationships with over 70 online game publishers (covering a suite of 200 online game titles) and Friendster’s more than 115 million users worldwide, there probably is plenty of synergy between the two entities.

The combined entity will maintain offices around the world, including Mountain View, CA (USA), the Philippines, Malaysia and Singapore.

Ganesh Kumar Bangah will become the Group Chief Executive Officer of the combined entity while Richard Kimber will become the Non-Executive Chairman.