Remember Friendster? Me either

Social networking has become such an integral part of our lives that we can’t even go to the bathroom without it. Yes. You Jenny. We know you tweet us from the loo. But who introduced this concept? Founded in 2002 by a US businessman named Jonathan Abrams, Friendster was really one of the first social networking sites that aimed to bring us all together. Built as a place to connect with family, friends, and colleagues via the internet, social networking was born.
In the early 2000’s Friendster had more than 90 million users, averaging over 60 million unique users per month. Although a majority of the traffic came from Asia, the platform attracted major investors. During its infancy, Google offered to buy Friendster for 30 million dollars. The owners did not take the offer and continued to build the brand.
Wondering what happened to Friendster? Let’s take a look…
Lesson # 1: Staying True To Your Vision
Friendster was built for social networking and the concept was a success. The website allowed users to connect with other members, share content and media, hobbies and music. The platform was a hit because it truly created an online connection previous platforms did not have.
However, the owners diverted from the initial vision of a social network and started focusing on incorporating video, audio and other features on the site. They tried to transform the system into a gaming site, but this became a nightmare for millions of people who wanted to simply use the platform as a social network.
This was early 2000’s so getting good analytics regarding your product wasn’t that easy. By adding on too many features and never really paying attention to the user’s interests, Friendster was losing its touch with its audience. The lesson here is to stick to your vision and establish ways to get feedback from your users and only launch those features when your audience is ready for them. Focusing on your MVP (Minimum viable product) first allows you to control the journey and grow with your audience.
Lesson # 2: Ensuring Positive User Experience
In late 2006, the overly increasing traffic for Friendster caused slow loading times. Instead of tending to the causes of the problem, Friendster focused on expanding the brand. That had a huge impact back then because we didn’t have sophisticated cloud infrastructures and during that time. MySpace and Facebook started stepping into the scene with the same vision. Users learned that they could load pages more quickly on those websites and migrated to them because the user experience was better. In July of 2009, a redesigned Friendster proved to be catastrophic, and Abram’s vision was slowly disappearing.
The second lesson we can learn from Friendster is that prioritizing positive user experience before expanding the brand, can help you retain your users. So, if you are planning to launch a website, mobile app or a digital marketing campaign, then it is crucial that the message is easily relayed, and the user experience is extraordinary. It can be the greatest differentiator between a forgotten brand like Friendster and a successful social networking site like Facebook.
At Tangerine, we do believe these two important lessons are noteworthy. If you know your MVP stick to it. If you do not, let our creative team help you figure it out. It’s never too late to create the next best thing. The secret is persistence, quality, and timing.
