Pakistan's MillatFacebook wants money

Launched about two years ago after authorities in Pakistan banned Facebook for putting up cartoons that they deemed were blasphemous, MillatFacebook is now facing a financial crisis. In order to pay server hosting bills the social netrworking site is sought donations in an email to users that was sent on December 10.

A leading international daily reported that the email that was sent was filled with "factual errors and highly suspect claims" that left a lot of doubts in the minds of readers with respect to the senders of the mail.

The social network site claims to be "the only Facebook rival" as it says that it is spending thousands of dollars for web hosting.

MillatFacebook says it sought donations to "help us towards our goal of keeping this Peaceful Social Network run forever and defeat blasphemer Facebook".

"As you can imagine, cost of running a social network is never easy and very costly. Current month we are facing a shortfall of 581 USD in server payments. (We are paying 1000s of USD in server payments ourselves and now need your helping hand to meet this shortfall)," the email said.

According to alexa.com, a internet traffic information site, MillatFacebook tends to be used by users who browse it from schools. The users are also disproportionately less affluent men under the age of 25 who have more children.

Visitors to the social network site spend about 46 seconds on each pageview and a total of three minutes on the site during each visit, alexa.com adds. Interestingly, the site is relatively popular among users in Indonesia's Malang (where it is ranked #3,145) and then second in Pakistan's Karachi (#10,266).