tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3090699.post5629710192604319723..comments2023-05-05T05:37:44.884-07:00Comments on James Hong: Enough with the Facebook/Friendster analogies...jameshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10683513169776386015noreply@blogger.comBlogger3125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3090699.post-55497510813248613182007-05-24T18:14:00.000-07:002007-05-24T18:14:00.000-07:00I recently learned that Facebook runs on a LAMP in...I recently learned that Facebook runs on a LAMP installation. The fact that the site is able to scale with MySQL is surprising given how many users they have. I'm also impressed with how serious they feel about spam and their complex karma point system.<BR/><BR/>I completely agree that Facebook is not like Friendster. It seems like one of the few social networking sites that listens to their users and reacts accordingly, and isn't afraid to publicly admit to screwing up. Also, it's such a relief to see a site that doesn't encourage their users to create crappy pages with glaring bright colors and busy backgrounds, something from the 90s.Jen Lhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/12742181793470866059noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3090699.post-25397768030412113562007-05-04T08:44:00.000-07:002007-05-04T08:44:00.000-07:00Why exactly is friendster considered a failure? Is...Why exactly is friendster considered a failure? Isn't the site still up an running? One would assume that if a business is making enough money to turn a profit, then it's not really a failure, right? <BR/><BR/>Is it because they didn't make googol dollars? Get it, googol dollars? Yeah, it's not that funny, but whatever.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3090699.post-69086016452572250512007-04-14T15:08:00.000-07:002007-04-14T15:08:00.000-07:00I'd agree with it being an idiot analogy. The NY ...I'd agree with it being an idiot analogy. The NY Times article some months back said it best--friendster failed because they were too intent on control (engineering) of the site, whereas myspace et al. allowed the users the chance to define the site. Any entrepreneur should realize that "customization" is a valuable tool and that the web is one of the fields most amenable to it. They read the tea leaves, but didn't drink the tea.<BR/><BR/>As for the future prospects/value of facebook; I'd take a split bet on that one. Even though they are dominant in a specific social space, they would need to ensure that their business plan provides proper support for solidfying that position. I'm not sure I've seen that; and I'll not state publicly what I think they should do. After all, YMMV...Anonymousnoreply@blogger.com