alt Hacker NewsI bought Friendster for $30k – Here's what I'm doing with it
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I tried to search for Friendster in the App Store and didn’t see it among the first few results. Instead, App Store was returning a sponsored ad followed by normal results for all other kinds of similar annd less similar apps. Instagram, Snapchat, Yubo (never heard of), Monopoly Go (mobile game related to the board game Monopoly), BeFriend (never heard of), Tinder, Friendly Social Browser (never heard of), Facebook, and at that point I stopped scrolling the results.
For a moment I thought maybe the app was US exclusive or something and not available in my region.
But following the link from the post worked fine and I could install it.
I literally searched Friendster and the app is named Friendster but App Store gave me all kinds of other crap in the search result instead. Weird.
Anyway, installed the app finally thanks to the link.
The 'tapping phones' gimmick strikes me as something that sounds cute but will become an annoying chore that one should be able to opt out of.
Particularly given various unintended side effects -- I personally wouldn't want my connection to my deceased best friend to be subject to some decay feature on a social network.
And either way, it's not the core feature that will draw users to the site
If you want to differentiate as an alternative to toxic behemoth platforms, the framing of "Facebook but with chores" isn't it. The idea of spending time on the platform itself should be appealing -- I am not that interested in knowing how to connect with someone on the platform before knowing why I would want to be there in the first place.
See e.g. how Nextdoor doesn't lead with "you'll have to verify that you live in the neighborhood", instead it's "Connect to your neighborhood with Nextdoor"
This looks exactly like what I've been looking for. I love the idea of using phone proximity as the only way to add friends.
I think it will be very important for the onboarding process to be effortless, so you should focus on that. Until you reach some kind of saturation, most people will be downloading the app because a friend wants to add them. Having a way to generate a QR download code on my phone when I "add" a friend so they can take a photo and then download it, and immediately connect us, would be huge.
Do you have any kind of development plan for new features?
This reminds me of the (also defunct) Bump app.
Here's what I would do.
1. Make it QR code scanning instead of tapping so it can be a PWA.
2. Make it a PWA. This will make it accessible to many more people. Nobody wants to install an app. Nobody wants to install a PWA either but they will at least use a "web site" (a surprising number will install it if it's good).
3. Save yourself a lot of money by building it on top of the Nostr protocol. Run a relay yourself if you want guaranteed reliability. Run a Blossom server for media. Use email for auth and store people's keys for them if you want a traditional UX. Don't worry about what's on Nostr already, just build your own thing on the protocol.
Let people come and go as they please and don't lock them in. They will love you for it later.
Cool project. Have fun!
A guy bought friendster.com for $30k and built an app where you can only add friends by physically tapping phones. Connections "fade" if you don't meet in a year. Sounds wholesome. Also sounds like a feature set that filters out 90% of the people who'd actually use a social network
Wow, the phone tap requirement, love it! And your ethics, the best part.
Constructively, of course (if you care for feedback devolving ramble-y):
Could almost see myself using a web app version of this for kicks. But can’t sign up for another network (though would be happy to link a self hosted project, if I could stumble through setup). Apps don’t feel private (Apple neglects to offer basic firewall/other features), and not sure how someone would look at me trying to get them to register somewhere… maybe the phone tap pitch is enough? (Especially if it’d allow one-tap registration for friends inviting new friends, because the phone bump allowed for some data transfer.)
Anyway, understand self hosting is ostensibly permanently destined to be unpopular but somehow feel if the pitch were “be your own network, tap the phone, use this Friendster infrastructure/instruction set to link your networks”, I’d be more tempted.
Thank you for keeping it not evil!
> You’d have to be specifically watching the domain friendster.com at the right time to find and participate in the auction, or you’d have to actively watch gname.com daily to see this auction.
You're telling me there's no "notify me when domain X becomes for sale" service?
I really wish more social networks would have a "fading connections" limit. So many social networks suffer from stale connections and networks, and these connections should expire after a year. Otherwise, it will permanently define a social network's content and editorial direction without algorithmic control. For example, Selena Gomez will always have 400million followers on Instagram, but she's socially irrelevant now. Same with other celebrities, like Kim Kardashian. If connections expired after a year (or 3 months or 6 months), people would have to maintain their social relevance, and it becomes a natural editorial filter, keeping the overall network fresh and relevant.
If you want a business model, require payment for long-term subscriptions or large celebrity/news accounts, but you have to overcome the network effect first. Maybe have a dozen or so permanent connections to start with, like MySpace's 8 priority friends.
Good article but sorry but it should not be normalized that you have to have an iPhone to join a social network. Something clearly wrong there.
Random idea: What if all the activity notifications arrived at the same time, eg 8pm every day? If any interactions depend on people being synchronously online together, notifications could be a strong way to make those features work when people don't have a ton of friends on this yet.
> this failed Apple App Store review because of Guideline 4.2 — Design — Minimum Functionality. They said “the usefulness of the app is limited because it seems to be intended for a small, or niche, set of users. Specifically, the app is intended for invited friends only.”
This is why we need laws regulating mobile platforms. Apple shouldn't be able to dictate what you use your phone for, or what apps you can give to your users. Doesn't work that way for PCs, shouldn't work that way for computers in your pocket.
> Fading connections. If two friends go a full year without tapping phones, the link between them softens. Not a punishment — a gentle nudge that real friendships are kept alive in person, not online.
I have this guy whom I used to be in touch with but now we meet every seven years randomly - happened two times already in completely different places and we're due for a meeting this year.
I would rather maintain this connection, because it's always fascinating to catch up after years.
Any chance of making the code open source? Would love to contribute to this and build more features needed. It’s an absolute bliss to see such a clean UI and no nonsense. I think you should consider that. Thanks for building this
> the usefulness of the app is limited because it seems to be intended for a small, or niche, set of users. Specifically, the app is intended for invited friends only.
Isn’t it insane that Apple refuses for an app to be listed on the App Store if it is intended to be niche? If true that’s pretty shocking
I believe a cool initiative would be to create a mastodon instance with the domain
I can't believe that domain trading is still a thing.. I am sitting on a bunch of "nice" domains; I could never imagine someone actually bought for not even vor 100 bucks... and here we are, 30k?
OK.
This is crazy, but unfortunately I don't have an iPhone otherwise I'd totally sign up.
We can't seem to be able to login from the website, it requires an Apple account? The UI might not be showing up properly.
I attended a concert last night and was wishing for this exact kind of app, being able to quickly exchange a follow with someone you just met in real life but will otherwise never see again unless you specifically ask for their name/number, which is awkward. Could spawn some special relationships.
When you're building a social networking site like this, when do you need to start to worry about laws from different states and countries (eg age bans, data export, etc)?
Very cool! If not for the $, for the fun. And you met your on OkCupid, so you can be the cupid this time.
- Make a blog about this on the domain. I'll follow!
- What do the logs say re: traffic? I see lots of links to the domain from articles about social media c. 2012
- What's your tech stack??
The only thing I liked when I did use Facebook was the "wall". To be able to post on a friend's wall semi- publically where their friends can see it. Most other Facebook clones have had the idea of tagging, but it wasn't the same. (E.g. Google+)
This is quite amazing. I remember being on the original friendster way back in the day. They had so much potential. And there was also orkut.com that was even better because of the simpler UX. Then came Facebook and you all know the rest.
> Fading connections. If two friends go a full year without tapping phones, the link between them softens. Not a punishment — a gentle nudge that real friendships are kept alive in person, not online.
One of my very best friends lives in another country. We speak nearly every day, but I haven't seen them in person in over a year.
Another of my friends lives on the other side of the USA. We speak a few times a week, but I haven't seen them in person in about four years now. And that was only because their mom lived nearby. His mom moved, so it's unlikely we'll see each other except once a decade when we do our friends trip to Vegas.
I have other very close friends who I almost never see in person.
My point being, having to tap phones is cool and all but not a great measure of the strength of friendship.
I remember Friendster being very popular in parts of Latin America / Brazil and Philippines. I think you could definitely get a lot of users through the nostalgia factor.
Tapping phones seems very limiting. I don’t see most of my friends in person that often, different cities etc.
I think a better alternative would be a phone number.
You only give your number to friends, which aligns with the brand and product concept.
Allows more of your friends to join via your address book, good for the app growth.
Might also mean indirectly you can’t follow a non-personal page which also aligns to the brand and product concept.
Nice. Quick hypoyhetical. Meta offers $1bn in 5 years time when you have 2m users. Will you sell?
If so this is a meta-or-dead social network.
Making it federated etc. would make me trust it more.
I worked with the guy that created Friendster! IIRC he made it back in ‘06/‘07 and I had one of the first test accounts. Chill dude, really smart.
TIL ppl have domains that make $9k/yr and here i am being happy my niche app is bringing me $200/mo revenue
The previous owner bought it for $8000 (quite less for domains like this) but here is the catch. This domain has a bad reputation and a lot of negativity since it has a long history.
Those who are in domain name business knows that because it affects the value of every expired/operational domain.
“My wife and I met on okcupid”
… 11 years going for me. Good on you. I don’t have any other social media accounts. I’ll do my best to join up on this one. Wholesome.
What does "a domain that was making about $9k/year in ad revenue" look like? Is this domain one where people randomly stumble upon it and give ad views to a parking page? A website with regular use or other content that people visit for some purpose that is now under different ownership?
A dream I had last night was for a social network based on the deep but brief conversations we have in park benches, club toilets, hospital waiting rooms. Where we are totally open somewhat vulnerable but free from commitments. Think about the first conversation you have had with a friend, often it's the most revealing or deep one you may have.
Somewhat anonymous, short in time, one to one, with the potential to connect afterwards on outside channels. Possibly only one conversation a day allowed, and possibly only available to pre set contacts.
If you meet someone this often to touch your phones, why do you even need to have an app to talk to that person? The beauty of social apps is that I can talk to someone who I can’t physically meet that often
> All of this is built around the simple idea that real friendships happen when you actually meet in person.
I understand the sentiment - but this would make it useless for my closest friends - we live in different cities and countries now - and it would take years to fill in the social graph. We would all have to travel and meet everyone else.
I suppose this is alleviated by the talk to a friend of a friend feature - but does sound like it partially excludes friends with limited mobility.
Considering I have most of my friends living abroad and how little I get to see other people (especially the ones that would use this app), I won't even bother downloading it. I don't need an app to feel lonely...
Does the new owner of the domain friendster.com also own the company, the patents and the other pieces of intellectual property? The article seemed to be unclear about this.
I really like the idea of a “facebook before it got bad “, with just people you actually know posting about what they’re up to.
But the “tap phones” thing wouldn’t work for me.
Most of my friends and family live halfway around the world from me. I visit the states every couple years, and make a point of seeing them when I can, but the reality is I live here and they live there (a dozen different theres in half a dozen countries)
Those are the people I want an app like this to keep up with. But they’re the people your app won’t even let me add as friends.
What if somebody's phone is of an alternative type, like a flip phone, and they can't install the app needed to tap phones? Then how will they become friends with another
I'm imagining one of those tiny libraries with a garden gnome in it with a cheap phone inside, connected to a garden gnome Friendster account.
And then it gets stolen and has a trip around the world, meeting new people.
This seems really cool for people whose friend networks are physically located in the same place they are.
That's not me, and hasn't been for probably 20 years.
But it's a neat idea regardless.
This sounds cool and similar to something I’ve been building! I say similar as we have different ideas and target audiences — What I’m building is a niche network specifically targeting people who are travellers or friends that like holidaying together. I don’t want to seem like I’m spamming or self promoting so will keep the link out but will share if people want.
Anyway, I digress, it would be great to connect and exchange ideas if you have the time? I really like the idea of fading connections.
It would be cool to leverage this proximity requirement to build a GnuPG web of trust. The one year 'weakening' would also help keep the web strong.
I bought a domain called youfriend.me about ten years ago with the exact same premise, tapping the phones together in real life. But I never developed it.
Cool to see someone did
I was going to complain about being the first given that I never used it, but indeed, Hi5 and My Space came an year later.
Too bad Apple wouldn't allow the registration requiring the tapping - it would have been cool if whole social network was a tree with a single root - the founder.
Ofc it's probably for the better if it's to have a chance to spread at least a little.
I find it interesting how old brands are being rebooted. Andersen Consulting is back.
If you can resurrect Old Spice, why not try it elsewhere?
> He said he would sell it to me for $40k. I offered $20k, which he refused but he said if I had any domain names generating ad revenue, we could do a deal of domains and cash. He said he would accept a lower amount if I paid in Bitcoin.
> So we worked out a deal where I gave him $20k in Bitcoin and a domain that was making about $9k/year in ad revenue, and he gave me the domain friendster.com. Now I was the owner of the domain name friendster.com.
I don't know anything about how to project future ad revenue of a domain, but would this be likely to be valued at only $10,000? Unless I'm misremembering my limits, even if it made $4,500 next year and continued to cut in half every year after that, it would still account for $9,000 of revenue projecting indefinitely into the future, even bumping that up to something like 60% of the previous year's revenue it would already put it at more than $10,000 (although I don't know whether ad revenue tends to scale with inflation or not; my instinct is that the prices of ads probably would roughly increase with inflation over time)?
I know I'm nitpicking a bit about the title, but I can't help but actually be curious now that I thought of this.