After pioneering the social networking phenomenon in 2003 and establishing a solid network of 115 million members (75 million of them in Asia), Friendster is now evolving into a bigger and better product for its users.

Malaysian corporation MOL Global acquired Friendster several months ago, and MOL Global Group Chief Executive Officer Ganesh Kumar Bangah says that Friendster will soon become a platform for a variety of multimedia content.

"We are in the midst of a highly confidential project; we call it Project Neutron. Basically, we transform Friendster into a social gaming portal over the next 3-6 months," Bangah told Filipino reporters and media representatives at Friendster’s Philippine office in Makati.

"You'll see hundreds of games in there. We've already partnered with many game developers. Users will find it entertaining to spend time on it," Bangah adds. “It will not be a completely different product, but an evolution.”

The upgraded Friendster will also provide users a simple, easy-to-obtain virtual currency that can be used to purchase virtual goods, online games and applications, and other products and services over the Internet. This is the result of a synergy of Friendster’s social networking infrastructure with the expertise of MOL Global in providing online payment transactions.

MOL Global has been Asia's leading online payment service provider for more than a decade, with more than 540,000 different payment collection points in 75 countries.

As for the inevitable comparisons with Facebook, Bangah clarifies that Friendster will not be competing with the former.

"We did not buy Friendster for it to become a general social network, which is what Facebook is. We bought Friendster because of its community, which allows us to basically roll out our content and games on it.

"Another reason we bought Friendster is because it has this brand that, in turn, gave our brand global recognition. It enabled us to get a lot of new partnerships as well, even a partnership with Facebook. So ironically, by buying Friendster, we actually made Facebook open their eyes and say, 'Hey that's a good payment system for online transactions'," says Bangah.