Friendster Is Back, But Don’t Expect Your Old Profile to Return

(SPOT.ph) Big day for titos and titas: Friendster is back! Sort of. The social networking site that once ruled early-2000s internet life in the Philippines has returned as a new mobile app under Friendster Labs Inc. It’s currently available for download on iOS.

Here’s the part where we burst your bubble: Friendster is no longer how you remember it.

On its website, Friendster describes the new app as “social networking, without the nonsense,” saying it has no ads, no algorithms, no spam, and no selling of user data. Instead of building a public follower base or adding random accounts, users are meant to create a private network made up of people they actually know.

Sorry guys, no testimonials, profile customization, public profile views, or highly personalized pages here.

Old accounts are not coming back, either. Friendster Labs says it has “no relation to or access to previous data hosted on friendster.com,” which means old photos, messages, testimonials, profile comments, and other account data from the original site are not available on the revived app.

Mike Carson, the Philadelphia-based programmer behind the revival, revealed in a blog post that he bought the friendster.com domain for only $20,000 in Bitcoin before later securing the Friendster trademarks in 2025. However, the plan was never to simply bring back the original website.

“Today I feel that social networks foster a lot of negativity, but I remembered Friendster as being a really enjoyable experience. I wanted to create something positive—something that people would enjoy and find useful,” Carson said.

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Friendster users can connect by tapping phones together in person. Only then can they share posts and send messages inside that private friend network. That also means that you cannot just search for an old classmate, former crush, or that one person you vaguely remember from high school and add them from across the internet.

The social media app is pretty high maintenance, too. Carson said that these connections can “fade” if two users do not tap phones again within a year, a design choice meant to reflect the idea that friendships should ultimately be maintained offline.

"If two friends go a full year without tapping phones, the link between them softens. Not a punishment—a gentle nudge that real friendships are kept alive in person, not online," Carson said.

The shift is a major departure from the original Friendster, which launched in the early 2000s as one of the first major social networking platforms. The old site allowed users to create profiles, maintain networks, share photos and messages, and interact through comments and testimonials. It became especially popular in Asia, including the Philippines, where it was once a default online hangout before Facebook took over.

Its decline came gradually. The platform struggled with technical issues, redesign problems, and competition from newer social networks. By 2011, the social media shifted into gaming and entertainment platform. The service eventually shut down in 2015.

As to why he bought the domain friendster.com in the first place, Carson wrote: “My wife and I met on OkCupid. I wouldn’t have my kids without it. Websites like that genuinely change the course of people’s lives—people meet, fall in love, build families. That’s incredible to me. If Friendster helps even a few people find that kind of connection, it will have been worth it.”

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