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55 Comments
- RichPowers, on 10/12/2007, -2/+51Did you feel that bite in your ass, Mr. Abrams? That was just greed saying hello.
- scott1, on 10/12/2007, -2/+41Friendster Business model:
1. Don't sell your company for $30 million because you think it's going to be worth a billion's in a few years
2. ???
3.Realize that your company has failed and you could of been a billionaire if you had sold your company. - parislemon, on 10/12/2007, -0/+38Wow this is made much worse when you read this:
"In retrospect, he should have taken the $30 million. If Google had paid him in stock, Mr. Abrams would easily be worth $1 billion today, according to one person close to Google" - friend18, on 10/12/2007, -9/+32OWNED
- DigiDave, on 10/12/2007, -0/+11Here is an interesting question:
Digg is an interesting experiment in social networking too and the number of copy-cat sites is testament to that. It seems like every week there is at least one story on the front page of digg that is about digg itself. As if the community want a chance to look closer at what this experiment is all about.
Could Digg ever go the way of Friendster? It would probably be for different reasons: Friendster seemed to have poor leadership and a revolving door of CEO's, but certainly Friendster shows that social networking darlings, like Digg, can go the road of the Dodo. I personally don't see it happening, but it is possible.
Any comments? - DigiDave, on 10/12/2007, -0/+10I found the stalking factor on Friendster was fine. The real reason why I switched my stalking from friendster to myspace was because of the speed.
Friendster was crawling at one point, and myspace came along and offered a faster better service for me to do my stalking. - triforcer, on 10/12/2007, -0/+10the difference is friendster was slow as hell, had limited features compared to myspace, and doesn't have regularly updated content like digg.
- TheWriteGuy, on 10/12/2007, -1/+9Nobody seems to want to admit this, but here's why MySpace succeeded quickly where Friendster failed: MySpace lets you "stalk" for people you don't know. Friendster by design actively prevents you from doing this.
Likewise, I wonder how well Facebook will do as it tries to expand its userbase beyond high school and college students. Facebook, as well, discourages users from scoping out for hotties. - canewediggit, on 10/12/2007, -0/+9i think the real thing that killed friendster was it's crappy tech. they weren't ready to get that popular that fast and couldn't properly scale. i'm sure we all remember the pain in the ass that friendster was. i don't forsee digg having that problem.
i remember pitching the friendster team on coming to a cio program that my company was doing back in '02. they blew me off and said they didn't need any help with their infrastructure. oops. - xinul, on 10/12/2007, -2/+10then don't comment on the story... or do you just like hearing the sound of your own key strokes
- encognito, on 10/12/2007, -0/+8As harsh as that sounds, this quote made me choke:
"Earlier, Larry Page and Sergey Brin decided to start Google after Yahoo declined to buy their search technology — for a paltry $1.6 million."
And of course the facebook founder recently declined 900 million from Yahoo proclaiming that his site is worth 2 BILLION! Somebody better show him this link quick. - L0t3k, on 10/12/2007, -0/+7The real lesson here is, "When someone offers you 30 million dollars for your website, don't hold out for more."
- Kamael, on 10/12/2007, -0/+6From the article:
“Basically, Jonathan wanted to meet girls,” said Mark J. Pincus, a Silicon Valley entrepreneur who provided Mr. Abrams with some of the seed money to finance his project at the end of 2002. “He told me himself, he started Friendster as a way to surf through his friends’ address books for good-looking girls.”
--
The objective is always the same...at least he was honest. - skeeto, on 10/12/2007, -0/+6I always thought the main reason MySpace surpassed Friendster was because MySpace let people do whatever they wanted to their pages. Friendster, at the time, tried to keep everything slick and professional. That, on top of being slow at times, really did them in. Of course now I think they allow HTML editing and crap, but too late. For crying out loud, MySpace has tons of errors all the time, but it's still a hit. He should have sold it to Google. Maybe he still can. I'm sure they'll give him a few thousand for it.
- scott1, on 10/12/2007, -9/+14This is blogspam don't even bother doing the show comment if you haven't seen it already.
Here burry this blogspam that he has submitted with the link above:
http://www.digg.com/tech_deals/The_Cheerleader_That_Never_Got_Laid_Friendster_The_Story - spudnic, on 10/12/2007, -1/+5You really think Kevin Rose would turn down a billion dollars? I don't
He'd have to be an idiot - Quiplash, on 10/12/2007, -0/+4Friendster survived as long as it did IN SPITE OF Mr. Abrams, not because of him. Abrams refused to take advantage of changes in his clientele the way MySpace did by shifting to embrace musical artists. He always wanted it to be a serious dating site, but people wanted to use it as a fun way to keep in touch with their friends, and maybe hook-up.
It was amusing for a while when people began competing for the largest Friendster network, and when other people began creating fake friendsters or fakesters ("Hi, I'm Neptune, a large ball of mostly gas!") but then the Friendstapo began to hunt them down and shut them down.
One other problem was that the site grew too quickly in 2003-2004 and was ssssslllllooooowwww as molasses. Eventually people just gave up.
The final straw for many early users was the firing of Troutgirl:
ryanschultz.typepad.com/blog/2004/08/friendster_fire.html
The only thing that saved Abrams' ass this long was the unexpected popularity of Friendster in the southeast Asian market, as far as I can tell.
I blogged my entire experience as a Friendster whore, the highs and the lows:
friendsterslut.blogspot.com/ - scott1, on 10/12/2007, -2/+5...Consider clicking the check spelling button too...
- TheWorm, on 10/12/2007, -0/+3Every couple months or so some girl sends me a message inviting me to her webcam site. Then I forget I even have a friendster until the next one. I figured it wasn't worth my time even deleting it.
- 4NDr01D, on 10/12/2007, -0/+3wasnt Friendster awarded patents for social networking ?
not saying I agree with it, but ... - f00xx0riz3r, on 10/12/2007, -2/+5@scott
HAHA. thats soo funny I gave you a digg .. haha. Thanks for the laugh of the week. God, where do you find the naiveness in your hearth? :DD - TenebrousX, on 10/12/2007, -1/+4yeah, Kevin Rose is so selfless. [/sarcasm]
think it's a coincidence he's on TWiT whenever he has something to promote? - Quiplash, on 10/12/2007, -0/+2"The two companies also mirrored their founders: where Friendster reflected the ordered vision of its engineer-founder — early on, the company famously removed the profiles of people who put up joke pictures, like photographs of their dogs in place of themselves — MySpace was more L.A.-laid back. At MySpace, they rode the wave instead of fighting it, and encouraged users to do pretty much as they pleased."
Bingo. Friendster moved AGAINST its user base, while MySpace moved to embrace its user base. Once a social networking site is released on the Internet, it evolves on its own; the job of the developer is to incorporate user feedback in helping the system grow.
Of the three sites I had kept my eye on (Tribe, Friednster, and MySpace), MySpace is clearly the winner. Both Tribe and Friendster began to bleed users when they made changes to the site or implemented new rules that alienated and angered their users. - converge, on 10/12/2007, -0/+2i'd give them $10.
- MikeWilson, on 10/12/2007, -0/+2I've never heard of Friendster...
- conto1987, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1I just looked at the alexa ranking and frendster and its actually higher than its ever been, so they could probably still bring some value to a company today. They wont become billionaires but they will be well off
- miaow, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1it may make a comeback. someday the myspace folk might look at their sites and think it looks awful. friendster at least looks tidier at the basic level. still a big mistake to put a barrier up at the first option (if you want to look around, you need to sign up)
- The_Dude, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1I recall reading in the article that he was swayed heavily by the venture capitalists involved. He had to defer to a bunch of 50+ year old men.
- felchdonkey, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1Simple solution. If someone posts diggspam in the comments, use Block/Report This User.
"Sending an email to Digg" about it isn't the way to handle it. Digg is self-policing. If enough users use the Block button, that person is banned from Digg. Simple and effective. - Raiden256, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1Friendster has a lot of users in South East Asia (it seems like every single asian international student here in Australia is on it), and if they can find a way to monetise those users or at least shift their focus towards a market where they actually have some dominance, then maybe they can make a comeback - or at least some money.
MySpace owns the U.S. now... that market is dead to them. - DougTanner, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1"Friendster’s fate is “a real puzzle,” Professor Piskorski said."
Why the hell is this guy teaching a class on this... the website took 40 ***** seconds to load, of course it ended up failing, who would keep visitng a site like that? Especially with all the alternatives springing up. - codercode, on 10/12/2007, -1/+2nevertheless, Friendster is still immensely popular here, in Malaysia.
- inactive, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1I havent logged into Friendster in ages, after reading this I logged into my account and all i have to say is good god man, That place is slower than myspace and they are Ranked 14!!! cmon friendster get your act together.
- miaow, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1the secret of myspace success was allowing the herd to throw up a page with pirated music/video as easily as possible without their head hurting for more than 5 seconds. its like 1998 over there.
- firsttube, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1it's all relative, isn't it?
- miaow, on 10/12/2007, -1/+1its probably a lie. probably copying someone elses idea.
- coltharpw, on 10/12/2007, -0/+0Everybody is mad because they know I'm right. Hurts huh?
- RealMinnesota, on 10/12/2007, -0/+0The problem with Friendster and Digg TODAY is that they are closed communities. What we need are OPEN networks and communties, not profile/content silos.
- streetsmartchic, on 01/31/2008, -0/+0Yah friendster really penetrate the asian market... here in the Philippines more People own 1 to 4 friendster account... i personally have 4 aside from other accounts... While on the myspace people are more US based... The named DANTE on the FORUM always beat spammers... what i hate about myspace is the rampant adverting and spamming... sucks!!! while friendster limits their goal to focus on networking meeting of friend and friends and friends....
http://www.kanati.com.ph - spirkster, on 10/12/2007, -2/+0Last month I wrote about who I think would be the perfect acquirer of Friendster -- IAC (which owns Evite, among many other recognized web brands). Post here: http://www.vestedventures.com/blog/2006/09/why-friendster-and-evite-iac.html
IAC lacks a social networking website in their portfolio and this acquisition would make so much sense for Friendster (breathe new life into them and expose the company's service to millions of daily users if integrated -- or splashed -- on IAC's other property sites). As for IAC, it would allow them to create a user community around all of their properties. In my opinion, they take a chapter out of the pages of what MyBlogLog is doing and build out Friendster to become a distributed social networking website that any website could easily integrate, allowing any website to tap into Friendster's userbase and easily create a community amongst their visitors. Post about distributed social network concept here: http://www.vestedventures.com/blog/2006/06/distributed-social-networking-website.html - suprchunk, on 10/12/2007, -4/+2You typed 'horney' should be 'horny'. But I digress.
- Petrarch1603, on 10/12/2007, -4/+3tgone, let us know when you make it to editor at the Times
- BasouKazuma, on 10/12/2007, -8/+4I was hoping that would be an actual site address .... cuz that wouldve made his post kinda funny.
*goes off to register www.grabthesenutsandchewonmyballsackyouhorneyfatgirl.com* - scott1, on 10/12/2007, -7/+2Is this turning into a Put your spam here thread?
I'm sending an email to digg about this spam attack! - mr804, on 10/12/2007, -9/+3could be filled with brasilians like orkut.
- inactive, on 10/12/2007, -7/+1never mind, your edit didn't make sense out of my clever reply.
- scott1, on 10/12/2007, -10/+4Digg won't go the same way of Friendster Kevin Rose won't sell digg not because he thinks he's going to make a billions form it but because if he did sell it some big company it will interfere with digg's content(even google would).
And digg is already clearing going toward success. It got on the front page of business week. It has about 500,000 registerd users so far in just 2 years. - xenubaba, on 10/12/2007, -9/+2Learn to read, moron
- tgone, on 10/12/2007, -9/+2This article is more like an essay -- could've been much shorter.
- coltharpw, on 10/12/2007, -8/+0This old news. If you listen to TWIT podcasts then you would have known about this a month ago. One other bit of knowledge about Myspace. It is the worse website on the Internet.
http://pcworld.com/article/id,127116-page,7-c,sites/article.html# -
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