MOL Global Pte. Ltd. (“MOL Global”), a leading online payment solutions provider , announced they have acquired Friendster.com , the social networking website. Yes, we are talking about the same old social networking site we registered long time back and almost forgot about it. Its the same site which has a record of hitting 3M users in first few months of its launch in early 2003. With MOL Global’s annual revenues of more than US$1.8 billion , the merger could create ,
“Asia’s largest end-to-end content, distribution and commerce network, pairing MOL’s offline retail channel partners and payment platform with Friendster’s large online footprint, social network and user community in Asia”.
Friendster and MOL first began working together in October, when MOL was enlisted to develop an integrated payments platform that would lay the foundation for The Friendster Wallet and The Friendster Gift Shop.
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TripAdvisor, committing itself further to the Chinese market, has now agreed to acquire Kuxun.cn, a flight and hotel search engine and the country’s second largest travel site.
This will see TripAdvisor own two of China’s top ten travel websites along with Daodao.com who it acquired in April. The combination of DaoDao.com and Kuxun.cn will more than double traffic for TripAdvisor Media Group properties in China.
Steve Kaufer, founder and CEO of TripAdvisor says “With both DaoDao.com and Kuxun.cn under our umbrella, we will enhance our ability to deliver trusted content that travelers seek, and further position TripAdvisor for expansion in this fast-growing market segment.”
Founded in February 2000, TripAdvisor was purchased by InterActive Corporation in 2004 and spun off into its travel group of businesses under the Expedia, Inc. name in August 2005.
With Kaufer still with the company, The TripAdvisor Media Group now operates 14 popular travel brands including TripAdvisor, Virtual Tourist, Cruise Critic, Seat Guru and TravelPod. The network of sites reportedly has over 10 million members over 25 million visitors a month.
TripAdvisor, owned by Expedia, plans to invest more than US$50 million in China through late 2011.
Sina 
