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I bought Friendster for $30k – Here's what I'm doing with it

1089 pointsby ca98am79last Sunday at 8:41 PM596 commentsview on HN

Comments

petesergeantyesterday at 5:10 AM

I love the idea generally of creating a social network that's meant to not suck, but the whole tapping phones thing is bad. The major benefit of Instagram, for me, is that it allows me to maintain relationships with people I am unable to physically see for long periods. I don't need social media to stay in touch with people I am physically present with, I need it for bridging distances.

fifticonyesterday at 9:24 AM

hmm, I have no iphone.

KPGv2yesterday at 4:24 AM

Pretty cool implementation, except when I read

> a gentle nudge that real friendships are kept alive in person, not online

my skin crawled. I live a fulfilling, creative life. I'm married, have kids, the whole nine yards. My best friendships are with people I know almost entirely online, or haven't physically seen in years because we live on different continents.

I have little interest in most of the people I see regularly, because we're friends only because our kids are in the same classes.

LoganDarkyesterday at 2:06 AM

> My wife and I met on OkCupid. I wouldn’t have my kids without it. Websites like that genuinely change the course of people’s lives — people meet, fall in love, build families. That’s incredible to me.

> If Friendster helps even a few people find that kind of connection, it will have been worth it.

Did you tap phones for OkCupid? The type of network you are building does not work that way -- you will not build the same types of connections in-person as you can online. I hope it goes well, but it's not the same type of thing.

globalnodelast Sunday at 11:21 PM

judging from what i hear people say. all you have to do is be able to display who's online from your friends list, and a chronologically ordered list of their posts. thats it. the major platforms are optimising for ads so much they cant even achieve this level of basic functionality

deadbabelast Sunday at 10:19 PM

Could you make it so you can have group chats but you can invite anyone you’ve tapped before and they can all talk together (but still not be able to talk outside the group chat)

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ghstindayesterday at 12:48 AM

can rename it botster

yieldcrvlast Sunday at 10:51 PM

on the fading connection and monetization - you could let people pay to re-up the connection from fading as opposed to meeting in person again first, and its makes them really think about whether meeting in person is worth happening again or would ever happen again, is the connection itself valuable in another way any way

on instagram, there is a social disincentive to unfollow people and you can also make someone else unfollow you in a couple ways (the button that does just that, as well as blocking someone for a second and unblocking them), doing these actions has a real cost to confrontation. people you thought you would never see again will see you again and say "I thought we were following each other???? oooo :O ... ooooh >:O"

you are making that activity a first class citizen, with no presumption of ill will behind it, this has value to it

DeathArrowyesterday at 5:54 AM

>Why I’m doing this

>My wife and I met on OkCupid. I wouldn’t have my kids without it.

But OkCupid didn't require people to tap their phones together in order to be able to chat in the app.

RobotToasteryesterday at 5:45 AM

Honestly, nothing could make me trust yet another centralised and closed source social network.

jona-fyesterday at 11:34 AM

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breezywheezylast Sunday at 10:47 PM

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psychoslaveyesterday at 7:27 AM

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northernsausageyesterday at 9:08 AM

In a world where I am trying to use my phone much less due to ingress of tracking, destroying my mind etc having a social media where its required is a bit of a no-no for me tbh. Additionally I feel like this puts more friction on those of us that are shy and weird, for us the internet and online places are where we can be ourselves. I wouldn't ask you if I could follow you on Twitter, I'd just do it because I find your stuff interesting. Putting a hurdle in the way of connection might sound daft but is enough for many not to use it or miss-connections.

For me the special sauce that's been taken away from SM is just seeing my friends stuff, I want to see your dog with out it having to be a 2min video with onscreen graphics, SEO keyword optimisation in the post title and brand tags. Show me your fluffy dog updates, just dont force me to ask you about it first.