Lessons from Friendster
October 16, 2006 – 10:42 amThree years ago, Friendster was the social networking site. Google offered founder Jonathan Abrams $30m. Now, MySpace gets 50 times as many hits. What happened in the intervening years?
This CNet article has a number of partial answers, but one theme sticks out: distracted by a litany of pie-in-the-sky dreams, they didn’t get the technical basics hammered out.
This was long my complaint about the site. While other social networking sites worked pretty well, browsing on Friendster was often like browsing the internet on a 14.4 dialup connection. Click, get a cup of coffee, see your friend’s profile. Click, wash some dishes, see his newest picture.
To their credit, MySpace did many other things right that allowed them to seize their pole position in market share. They provide better means for fans to connect with music. They let users contact anybody. They give users more leeway in designing one’s own profile. (If you think today’s youth r forgttg how 2 spll thx to txt msgg, their sense of graphic design would make you shudder; all the same, this individual expression is an important key to MySpace.com’s success.)
To a large extent, Friendster let big-wig venture capitalists and big dreams about being the next Google get in the way of doing what makes Google so successful: it works, reliably and quickly.
Friendster gives us two lessons: First, make sure your technological ducks are in a row, no matter where you are along the path from idea to billion-dollar company. Second, when Google offers you enough money to retire, take it.