Pak launches its own social networking site

BuddyFlick.com creator Yousaf Fayyaz says that the website will prove to the world that Pakistani engineers are 'talented'

Website will offer features like photos, video-sharing, chatrooms, Twitter integration and other applications


Engineers of the Pakistani Information Technology successfully launched a social networking website based on the pattern of Facebook. The name of the website is BuddyFlick.com.

Its creator, Yousaf Fayyaz, said that the website was launched with an aim of proving to the world that Pakistani engineers are talented enough to maintain their own social networking website.

Fayyaz said that operating a website is not an easy task, as it requires a lot of resources but BuddyFlick.com would offer the same features, which Facebook did, The Daily Times reported.

Fayyaz also said that the website was still in its development stages but it would offer features such as photos, video sharing, chat rooms, wall posts, games, quizzes, fan pages, groups, events, photo tagging, custom profile designs, Twitter integration and other applications.

Previously, Pakistan had launched MillatFacebook which is Muslim-oriented social networking website.

On May 19, 2010, Lahore high court banned Facebook from being accessed in Pakistan, after a user of the website created a page for ' Everybody Draw Mohammed Day', and Facebook failed to remove the page despite complaints from users. Both this and the fact that Facebook had been criticised for its 'confusing' privacy controls led to the setup of MillatFacebook an independent site which offered Pakistani users a way to continue using a Facebook-style social networking site.

The site attracted over 4,300 users, most of them Pakistani, in the first few days. This number was expected to grow further because of Pakistani Facebook users being unable to access Facebook as a result of the national ban on the site.

On May 30, however, a Pakistani court ruled that the Pakistani government should restore access to Facebook.

The Urdu word "Millat" is used by Muslims to refer to their nation.

MillatFacebook has criticised Facebook for ignoring complaints from Muslim users, who MillatFacebook says provide almost 50% of Facebook's revenue.

The chief operating officer Usman Zaheer warned Facebook by saying, "We want to tell [the] Facebook people 'if they mess with us they have to face the consequences'. If someone commits blasphemy against our Prophet Mohammed then we will become his competitor and give him immense business loss[es]. We dream of making the largest Muslim social networking website."