White iPhone finally goes on sale

The long-awaited white model of the iPhone 4 is finally available, nearly a year behind schedule.

Apple said Wednesday that white iPhone 4s can be bought through Apple's online store starting Thursday or at Apple stores and authorized retailers.

Apple planned to begin selling the white iPhone along with the black model in June of last year but its release was repeatedly delayed by manufacturing challenges in a rare setback for the California gadget-maker.

"The white iPhone 4 has finally arrived and it's beautiful," Apple's senior vice president of worldwide product marketing Philip Schiller said Wednesday.

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CNET's Top 5 Cellphones

Apple iPhone 4 (Verizon Wireless)

The Verizon iPhone 4 has much in common with its AT&T counterpart, but varying features and different performance give it enough room to stand apart. It won't vastly change your iPhone experience, but we welcome the consumer choice that it brings.

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HTC Evo Shift 4G (Sprint)

For those who crave a physical keyboard, the HTC Evo Shift 4G is a solid choice with a more wallet-friendly price than its 4G competitors, and it doesn't sacrifice too many features.

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Motorola Atrix 4G (AT&T)

The laptop dock is a decidedly cool (and pricey) feature, but the dual-core Motorola Atrix 4G has plenty to offer on its own. The smartphone packs speed and high-end features into a sleek package and earns its place at the top of AT&T's Android lineup.

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T-Mobile G2x

The T-Mobile G2x's simple Android interface, blazingly fast speeds, and polished look make it the phone to beat in T-Mobile's lineup.

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T-Mobile MyTouch 4G

Though video chat isn't ready for prime time, there's plenty to love about the T-Mobile MyTouch 4G, including its speed, sleek and sturdy design, and great call quality.

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The Reason Behind Friendster's Fall

scant attention was paid to Friendster's users. Sometime in early 2004 at how Friendster's traffic would mysteriously spike at 2 a.m. Surprisingly at the site's log it appeared that everyone is from the Philippines. The first American to "Friendster" a Filipino, found Carmen Leilani De Jesus, a 32-year-old marketing consultant and part-time hypnotherapist from San Francisco, the 91st person to join Friendster. She was directly connected to Abrams as well as to dozens of Filipinos, who'd in turn connected to thousands more. In fact, more than half the site's traffic was coming from Southeast Asia.

From a business standpoint, the revelation was devastating. Friendster, it turned out, was paying millions of dollars a year to attract eyeballs that were effectively worthless to its advertisers. Says Abrams: "We needed to make a tough decision"--either spin off the Asian business or become the No. 1 Filipino social network. But because the Filipino users had come by way of their American friends, there was no easy answer. If Friendster cut the cord to Asia--either by drastically cutting back on engineering resources or by kicking the Asian users off the site altogether--it risked damaging its American user base.

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Friendster, another Facebook casualty

MANILA, Philippines -- Social networking pioneer Friendster has advised its millions of users to take their files elsewhere, or face oblivion by May 31, when the site begins a reincarnation of itself as a non-Facebook-competing, "entertainment and fun" service.

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