Digital Empath

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Friendster's Page Views Up 40% in May

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More on "Patient Zero"

Jonathan just sent me another link in re: his recent Inc. magazine cover story on Friendster in which I was mentioned as "patient zero," - this time, one the article's author's blog.

Link here: Friendster's Patient Zero.

I am currently in San Francisco, seeing my friends(ters) for a 3rd baby shower for the Pod.  Everyone wants to party with the Pod.

I resemble this remark. I didn't break the Friendster.

I didn't mean to mess up the Friendster servers, I just clicked send. :(

From Bretterrill.com:

Any site that has a social component has to face the early adopter problem. The early users on your site will determine the size, growth, demographics, and culture of your site. As the creator of a site with any social component, you must take this into consideration.

If I was the CEO of a company that had a social component, I'd weigh the consequences of bringing the early adopter/Techcrunch crowd into the fold before the culture of your site has been strongly established. Getting a few thousand early users fast could cost you hundreds of thousands of users later on.

Below are some examples of the effect of early adopters on social networks.

Friendster - Example 1 - Demographics
Take for example, Friendster, yesteryear's favorite social network. Most of Friendster's audience is in the Philippines. Why? Because of one early user (no.91) on Friendster named Carmen.  She's a Filipino hypnotherapist living in San Francisco with a lot of Filipino friends.
So what's the problem?  Friendster can't monetize Filipino users, but they take up a significant share of Friendster's resources. Obviously, this observation does not speak to Friendster's downfall which has been covered quick well elsewhere, but I find it an extremely compelling example of the unforeseen effect early users have on a social site.

I actually didn't invite "a lot" of Filipino friends, just some - the rest of the people I invited were from my massive personal network of friends in the Bay Area, most of whom were deeply entrenched in the first bubble - and were all "early adopters" of emerging technologies at that time.  I personally think that Friendster took off in the Philippines because that's a culture where friendship and "who you know" is sometimes a more valuable currency than money.  Beyond the reality of "palm-greasing" - basically everyone has an "uncle" or a "friend" or a "relative" who can help you get what you need based on nepotism, favoritism, friendship, etc., because not everyone has money. . . but if you "do me a favor. . . I'll owe you a favor. .etc." This is why friendship is important, and why a platform like Friendster, which was a "friend-collecting" service, took off so rapidly in the Philippine culture.

Thus spake Patient zero.

CDJ = Friendster's "Patient Zero" for the Philippines?

Thanks to my friend Jonathan Abrams, I've been mentioned in the business magazine, Inc., as being "patient zero" for the Friendster phenomenon in the Philippines.  It's the cover story for the June issue. Click on the story about Friendster. I'm mentioned here, on page 5, of the online article.

What's totally hilarious to me is the way Jonathan is often portrayed in the online/offline media.  Bloggers have spurned him, called him arrogant, accused him of creating Friendster to "get dates," and now Inc. magazine has taken his story and created this mythos of Jonathan somehow being a VC victim, and how Friendster was so unsuccessful. 

What I know about Jonathan is that he is an extremely ethical, hardworking, and thoughtful human being with an amazing sense of humor - which is what shields him from the ridiculous gossip and politic of the Valleywagger types.  He codes almost everything he's ever built, by himself, does his own PR, and never stops working on his next projects, no matter what ostensible setbacks or perceived "failures" others try to pin on him. 

Recently, he wrote a very thorough article, a rebuttal and public statement called "The Truth about Evite"  to respond to Evite's recent threats to sue him and his new venture Socializr.

Breaking News: The Truth about Evite by Jonathan Abrams

My friend Jonathan Abrams, (the "inventor/coder/founder" of Friendster) just posted a brilliant diatribe on "The Truth about Evite."  If you haven't yet heard about his new company/web app "Socializr," click and get on board.  I just asked him what his site traffic was today, and what it is on a typical day.  Now I want to know what tomorrow's traffic, and next week's site traffic will be.  While it may be a little silly, I just want to see the ripple and spike.  Apparently, I'm a nerd. Which is true. He doesn't use the Google Analytics, tho, but I wish he did so I could see the cool new G-Anal interface reports on his site traffic.

Socializr is officially still in "Gamma."  Jonathan's riff on Google's "Don't be Evil" credo is Socializr's "Don't be Boring." By the way, in my native country of the Philippines, Jonathan Abrams might be considered a deity of some kind.  To this day, they luurve Friendster in Southeast Asia.

Who's responsible for online safety?

From the New York Times: States Fault MySpace on Predator

Some of the country’s top law enforcement officials are charging that the online social network MySpace has discovered thousands of known sex offenders using its service, but has failed to act on the information.

Is Myspace really to blame for not being able to police every user?