First-Mover Advantage
Classmates.com was started in 1995.
Friendster was started in 2002. MySpace was started in 2003. Facebook was started in 2004.
Oops. Those guys must feel like fucking morons, for failing to capitalize on that kind of head start.
They blew their first mover advantage the day they made you pay to see more the first few lines of anyone's profile. Suckers.
Posted by: Sean on February 7, 2007 8:19 PM | permalinkIt's always been trivial to demolish nearly any paid subscription service with a free (as in ad supported) one... assuming they can afford to keep it running anyhow.
Posted by: Bob Ippolito on February 7, 2007 8:26 PM | permalinkGood point. That said, they never offered very compelling reasons to join. The feature-set sucked my balls.
I think the only non-porn sites where I've paid for access to content have been ESPN and the WSJ.
Posted by: Joe Grossberg on February 7, 2007 8:54 PM | permalinkIsn't the mass migration from Friendster to MySpace a case-study on web failure in business schools now?
I wonder why, although Facebook is hugely popular, MySpace still seems able to compete?
Will something replace one or both of those sites in a few years as the next generation of young people don't want to follow the lead of the groups that came immediately before them? Or was Facebook's popularity originally a function of its exclusivity (at one point you needed a .edu email address to get on) and now that it's open to high school students as well, it will maintain its popularity in perpetuity, like Marlboro cigarettes?
Posted by: Danny G on February 8, 2007 11:13 AM | permalinkFacebook used to only accept .edu email addresses, excluding a lot of people.
Also, they don't allow all that customization like MySpace -- layouts, music, videos, etc.
Posted by: Joe Grossberg on February 8, 2007 1:36 PM | permalinkNo more comments! Either someone has violated Godwin's Law, I'm tired of the discussion or, most likely, the ten-week window has closed. You can, however, contact me through email.