The failure of Friendster
Finally, a mainstream media piece about the failure of Friendster. In Wallflower at the Web Party, Jonathan Abrams writes the article that many involved knew was coming, and few wanted to have to read.
It paints a pretty ugly picture of Friendster's high-profile investors, board of directors and revolving door management team. At fault? The inability to address basic performance issues and, as some others have mentioned, an unwillingness to allow group-level communicaitons (ie: Fakesters) in favour of uniquely person-to-person connections.
There is no single reason that explains Friendster’s failures, Professor Piskorski added, which is what makes it academic fodder. "It’s a power story," he said. "It’s a status story. It’s an ego story." But largely, he said, Friendster is a "very Silicon Valley story that tells us a lot about how the Valley operates." The usual suspects have reviews and comments, including Mike Arrington, Mathew Ingram, Venture Beat (a new favourite of mine), and Brady Forrest over on O'Reilly's Radar.
Technorati Tags: social.networks, vc, business.models, friendster
Sunday, October 15, 2006
 Comments:
Friendster definitely missed a opportunity -- being there at the moment -- but I'm not sure you can call MySpace a well designed product. The interface is abysmal, you need to force it make interesting layouts and the different areas of functionality (blog, video, calendar, etc.) are practically separate applications.
I recognise the value of first mover, but I'd think someone can do better.
# posted by : 5:22 PM, October 17, 2006
|
