Well, this is a bit weird, since I can't find actual mention of this anywhere... I mean, its advertised on Friendster, but Six Apart doesn't seem to have it on their site and no one else seems to be commenting much on it. You can now create a blog on Friendster, and its powered by Typepad. In fact, it basically is Typepad and there isn't much integration on the site between the two products, other than the fact that you can annouce your new blog to all of your first degree friends.
The interesting thing is that there's a free version, and from what I can tell, its essentially FREE Typepad. However, it says that it will be Ad-supported, although they don't seem to have placed them yet on my test blog... maybe because I have no content yet.
The interface is clearly Typepad, though, and so are the pricing levels for the ad free services. I thought, to be honest, that I was going to be sent to LiveJournal when I picked the free one. I'm really surprised there's now a free level of Typepad out there for Friendster members. Its really a fantastic value and I think that a lot of people will take advantage of it. Supposedly there are 13 million people on Friendster. That's a lot of free blogs out there supported by ad revenue. I wonder how the ad revenue will be split between Friendster and Six Apart.
I also why I didn't get an e-mail from Friendster on it, or why it didn't show up on Six Apart's website. To my knowledge, this is the first such deal they have providing blogging services to a content partner. Will this start a battle to snatch up portal users? When is Yahoo going to start offering a blogging service to its members? Might they use Typepad the way Friendster has or go on their own? Fascinating stuff. And now I should go to sleep. I wish there was a way to connect this story to my Success Blogging site... I'm desperate for traffic there. Ah well. :)