Janette ToralDigital Filipino

THE first money remittance service I used that has a social networking feature is YesPinoy.com. This is where you have to invite your recipient or sender to create an account, establish friendship connection, and be able to send or receive money from there.

Yesterday, I received information that the same can be done now through Friendster.com as it has launched its support for users to send and receive money via the GCash payment solution. This is great news to the more than 13 million Friendster
users in the Philippines.

Valentine's 2009 blog

This launch makes Globe Telecom the first partner to enable money transfer on Friendster, through its wholly-owned subsidiary G-Xchange, Inc., and their flagship GCash (http://www.g-cash.com.ph) mobile commerce platform.

From the Friendster web site, to initiate the process of sending money to another user, one has to associate his or her Friendster account with his or her GCash mobile phone number. Users can send money to any Friendster user who is also a GCash subscriber, where the transaction is securely completed using SMS text messages from the authorized mobile phone and the mobile PIN provided by the owner. Transaction fees are P2.50 per transaction for Globe subscribers.

Being able to send money or perform e-commerce transactions through social networks, such as Friendster, is a great example on how these sites have matured and can be used for purposes other than keeping in touch with friends.

This development makes it more urgent for entrepreneurs to create accounts and sell affordable stuff online to tap the potential of one’s market or connections.

This can also be used to trade both tangible and non-tangible items (such as virtual gifts).

Last Feb. 9 and 10, I was at the E-Services Philippines event and managed a booth. I was able to get a reasonable number of visitors and got good inquiries as well. Despite the global financial crisis, it is great to see industry players actively moving forward. The conference actively discussed possible solutions to mitigate the situation and explore opportunities that are created as a result.

President Arroyo also announced a P200-million support package for the sector. The amount will be spent on improving infrastructure. As to where will this go, is another story altogether as different players have their sound ideas on how the money will be allocated, from trade promotion to skills improvement to tax incentives and tariff reduction, among others.