So I was just talking about the mysterious Filipino Web 2.0 undertaking Wablet and how it will give Meebo a run for its money (well, not really).

Now comes Friendster MoBS, another web-based instant messaging platform that bears a frightening resemblance to Meebo’s GUI. Except that in MoBS, your only contacts are your friends in your Friendster account. But wait, on their site they say:

Friendster MoBS is a new web-based chat service. If you look to the right side, your buddy list is pre-populated with your friends. You can move the buddy list window and all other windows to your liking (we keep those settings even if you logout). Expect more features like group chatting and chat integration (jabber, yahoo, aol, etc.) in the future. Enjoy!

Moreover:
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I read about Marc Macalua’s lousy time with PLDT MyDSL. All I can say is — Dude, I know how you feel. I’ve been languishing with MyDSL forever because it’s the only damn DSL service available in my area. Frequent lost connections, extremely sluggish download times (way below what’s being advertised) and outages are just some highlights of my love-hate affair with MyDSL.

In an act of utter desperation, I took up LiveJournal user faithlessphil’s advice on switching my DNS to somehow improve my online plight. According to him, PLDT had run out of IP addresses that they are now taking them from as far as Johannesburg. Ok, that might be a stretch. But who cares? PLDT MyDSL is crap. He recommends using OpenDNS’s faster and more secure DNS servers. I’m on a Linksys wireless network. Setting it up took under a minute and there’s no registration required!

The results?
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Frienster again wrote me informing that “some statistical information” of my first free ad was lost. To make up for it, I get a hefty P1,000 coupon (or E-pin), allowing me to make a new ad that will show up 30,000 times over a 7-day period. How’s that?

Clearly Friendster’s advertising platform is still in the testing stage. It looks promising — perhaps even better than their other type of advertising that I found too distracting and invasive. Text advertising is the way to go these days. It’s easier to look at, faster to load and not as cumbersome as traditional banner ads. Friendster Ads takes on a similar form as Google Adsense’s Adlinks, wherein a user is taken to a page of relevant ads instead of directing them to an advertiser’s website. I particularly dislike Adlinks because I found them ineffective. But the main difference is that Friendster Ads presents a whole page ad that’s composed by the advertiser, which is a lot better. I do wish that they can make their ads contextual based on the user’s hobbies and interests rather than displaying random ads that’ll just go to waste. They should also let advertisers choose which demographic their ads would cater to.

Friendster Ads looks like a promising revenue stream in the offing. With a 5 million-strong Filipino user base, I think many will find this a convenient and very cheap way of promotion.

Yet again, I’ll report on how my second ad does.

I got an invitation to try Friendster Ads (FAds) Beta (clap3x) with a credit of P50, or equivalent to 625 views. Not bad for a freebie, but I’ll have to see first if it’s an effective form of advertising. P50 is really very cheap (less than a US$ buck), so anyone can basically advertise anything under the sun.

Setting up the ad was quite easy. It took only 3 steps in about 5 minutes. I’ll report on the results soon.