How to Use Friendster

These are my tips for those newbies to Friendster. If you already are a Friendster member, you may want to make changes to your Friendster account after reading my post.

• NAMES. When choosing a name to use for your profile, use the name that most people have known you from your  ancient years because they are more likely to use this as a search tool when  old schoolmates go looking for you. I used my maiden name and found a lot of my old classmates and friends from way back.

• NICKNAMES.  If you want to use nicknames, avoid using nicknames that are so out of this world, like the “man of your dreams” , “dreamboat”, “dream girl”,  etcetera , that nobody from your past, present nor future will be able to find you. I cannot count the times when I look at my friendster Friend list and find profile names that makes me wonder “now who on earth is this? It becomes even more confusing  when they post their kids’ pictures or a celebrity’s picture on the profile page and not a single picture of the actual Friendster member. 

• AGE/LOCATION/HOMETOWN. Why do some people hide these things? They put 86 when they’re not, it’s understandable if you’re under 16 and you have to change your age so you can get in but putting 86? Get real, put something that is a bit closer to your real age. As for location and hometown, at least put the country where you’re really at so your friends will know where in the whole wide world you are now.

• PICTURES. Pictures should be the modest ones, not one where you are in a bikini or trunks. Be careful of posting these kind of photos since if your profile is set to public,  everybody can take a peek an everybody can all copy and save your beloved pics to their computers, and post it to wherever they want.

• FRIEND REQUESTS. Choose “MANUALLY ACCEPT REQUEST” so your potential friend will not be put off by trying to remember your last name or email addie. ACCEPT or REJECT the Friendster invitation if you want or if you don’t like to add him or her just let the FRIEND REQUEST sit there for a decade. I’m sure the person will get the message.

• VIEW PROFILES ANONYMOUSLY. Set the option to “YES ” if you don’t want people to know you peeked into their profiles especially if you’re peeking into your ex’s Friendster account, or your arch-enemy, or your crush.  Choose “NO” if you want people to know that yes, you took the time to visit their profile page, kinda sending the message to ” visit me too” .

• WHO CAN SEND ME MESSAGES. This one is the most important one. Set it up to “Selected Continents” or at least “Third degree” so that your friends who have relocated to other parts of the world can still send you messages. There were a lot of my old friends  that I wanted to send messages to but they were not accepting messages just because I am not their friend yet. Now I know that people are wary about messages due to spams and viruses but hey you can check out the sender’s profile first before opening the message and if it’s someone you don’t really know, well, delete it right away!  No big deal right?

• WHO CAN VIEW MY FULL PROFILE. Set it up to MY FRIENDS because you don’t know who might be peeking into your page and who’s looking into all your pictures. If they have full access to your page, they will be able to copy your pictures and post it to who-knows-where. Potential friends will still be able to view your profile even if it’s set on private but not fully so at least the predators won’t be able to view your pictures.

• WHO CAN LEAVE COMMENTS. Choose SELECTED CONTINENTS and do the next tip. The reason is that the comments section  is another way for your friends who’s not yet on your Friendster list  to communicate with you if they cannot send you a message because you’ve set it up to FRIENDS Only.

• APPROVE COMMENTS AUTOMATICALLY. Choose NEVER so you can approve and reject comments that are not to your liking.