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. (more…)

T&A: Knowledge at Wharton has released a feature predicting a possible shake-out in the social media network space.

Basically, with Facebook’s recent purchase of FriendFeed, Friendster’s refocus on the APAC region and MySpace.com owner NewsCorp reshuffling some execs, there’s buzz that this could be the first signs of a shake-out.

According to Wharton, while there is still growth in this sector, expect a round of consolidation, restructuring and reinvention soon.

One of the biggest reasons for this prediction is that there are too many social networking sites — one of the signs for this is when there are aggregation sites which compile social profiles from multiple networks.

Wharton also shared some insights into Friendster, which announced plans to expand into Singapore, Philippines and other APAC countries in January.

HWM Indonesia

HWM Indonesia: We’ve been bombarded with tons of social media network sites for the past decade.

The potential of getting a vast amount of traffic in a short time is so alluring that all kinds of social media network sites are set up, from a very niche social network (e.g. www.temankuliah.com for the Indonesian audience) to a global social network (e.g. Friendster or Facebook).

The sites that offers the “portability” (e.g. accessible on mobile phones) and “quality of relationship” (e.g. interaction with your friends through games or comments) will differentiate themselves in the long run, thus maintaining or even growing their members through recommendations/ invitations from existing members.

Without deep pockets, the bigger sites, of course, will be expensive to maintain.

Despite the heavy traffic, monetization is still difficult although the idea is catching up with advertisers. However, shake-ups will continue with the current small pool of advertisers.