Friendster has launched virtual gifts and the Friendster Gift Shop in Malaysia, which represents  the first in a series of upcoming products the social network will roll out to better monetise its global user base. The virtual gifts and the Friendster Gift Shop products will use the new Friendster Wallet allowing for its users to buy and send gifts to one another. The gift shop initially launches in Malaysia and will be rolled out within weeks throughout SE Asia and globally.

Earlier, Friendster has partnered with MOL AccessPortal Berhad (MOL) for the company to power a prepaid payments platform for Friendster’s 115 million users globally. The introduction of this payment platform, through its stored value Friendster Wallet system, is a critical step towards the social networking giant’s ability to monetise its global user base. Friendster Wallet credit is stored as currency called Friendster Coins and can be spent throughout Friendster’s site for goods and services. It will give Friendster the ability to develop other revenue streams surrounding virtual goods, gifts and games.

This initiatives is  somewhat similar to Facebook – which rolled out its virtual currency earlier whereby consumers can make use of Facebook credit to purchase and send gifts, even in the real-world. I guess it will only be a matter of time for Friendster to also roll this out to the real world. It would really be interesting to see whether consumers would adopt this new form of currencies to make their purchases.