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Overhype

by Mike Masnick

Wed, Aug 13th 2003 8:11pm





Friendster Fakesters - Goodster Or Badster?

from the so-much-hypester dept

Friendster still hasn't figured out its business model, and it's already facing backlash from its users. Last month I wrote some of the reasons I wasn't impressed with the concept, and mentioned the numerous fake profiles. Salon is looking at the phenomenon of fakesters on Friendster and how Friendster's founder is going around deleting them all - which is upsetting people who thought they were fun and made the service worth using. Some people are now purposely creating fake characters just to piss off the people who run Friendster. The problem is that, in order for the system to work well, it needs as many users as possible - meaning it has to be easy to sign up. When it's that easy, though, that means it's just as easy to create fake Friendsters. Either way, already people are saying that the "great age of Friendster" is on the downswing. Update: Oddly, there's an SF Weekly story on the same exact topic. Who knew Friendster fakesters were worth two whole articles?

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  1.  
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    Chad, Aug 13th, 2003 @ 11:39pm

    No Subject Given

    This seems premature...I think Friendster can survive it just needs to get creative about its revenue model. Just because a small percentage of the user base is getting hostile doesn't mean Friendster will die off.

    I think they should pay for contacts, maybe like 50 cents to send a message to someone you don't know. Since the site is a glorified dating site this could make money. Or maybe they have a ridiculously low subscription fee, something like $3 a month, first 4 months free? I mean jeez they have a million users, convert even 1/2 those and it could be profitable.

    However OTOH as someone who's signed up I wouldn't pay for it, so count me as one of the users who they couldn't convert.

     

    [ reply to this | link to this | view in thread ]

  2.  
    identicon
    Bored Tech Geek, Aug 14th, 2003 @ 2:22pm

    Cheesester ...

    Friendster will kill its self if it doesn't find a business model which will successfully carry itself ...
    Personally, I couldn't even get through the sign up feature due to programming errors on the website ... anyone else experience this ?

     

    [ reply to this | link to this | view in thread ]


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