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Friended is a new social network that wants to get real

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Re: Friended is a new social network that wants to get real

#61

I like the idea, but 2 things. 1) where did they get the prices of $4.99 a week? Facebook's average revenue per user per quarter is ~$25. That's approximately $1.50 a week, for their most profitable section. Elsewhere, FB makes $6 ARPU per quarter, or around 37¢ a week. I'd be willing to pay $1 a month for a social network if it manages to get around the network effects etc. but ~$20(!) for something Facebook enables…

> where did they get the prices of $4.99 a week?

The TC article says this is the cost if you want to post a conversation starter more frequently than once every 8 hours, or for other advanced features. That sounds like a power-user feature to me (I post very infrequently on social media).

Re: Friended is a new social network that wants to get real

#62

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> There is no short conversation you can have that'll turn a stranger into the kind of friend they're seeking. I'm actually not sure this is true. And I say that because I'm actually not sure this is true: > It. Takes. Time. And I say that because of things like [0], which seems to say that connection is more about vulnerability and depth of understanding than anything else, and achieving that depth can be accelerate…

Real world relationships, those that are truly meaningful, take a lot of investment from both sides. Outside of the lab being vulnerable carries significant risk. For one, you risk being taken advantage of. This happens all the time, people are manipulated for sex, financial gain, and sometimes just for social status gains (clique shunning etc.). It's pretty common for vulnerable bonding to be misused by one or both…

I am not sure where you can draw a clear line on what is a meaningful relationship.

Some people decide to get married after knowing each other for a few weeks. Some of those marriages even end up healthy and lasting long term. If anything I think it’s maintaining a real relationship that takes time not forming it.

Re: Friended is a new social network that wants to get real

#63
The first-listed option in the account creation flow is to log in with Facebook. Since I'm trying this to get away from FB, I'm not going to do that. But then once I've created an account with email, there's no way to put in any information that would help me connect with my existing friends. Why is there no way to indicate your university, employers, or location?

Re: Friended is a new social network that wants to get real

#64

> Friended wants to give users a deeper and more meaningful connection to one another, which the company believes they crave. > The idea is to give people a chance to share how they really feel in a vulnerable, one-to-one setting. In playing around with the app, I had conversations with people about how to make friends in NYC and why it sometimes feel like others don’t care about us as much as we care about them. I'm…

> It. Takes. Time. That's it. There's no shortcut There is - being in deep shit together for a brief time. The deeper the shit the shorter the time needed for a true friendship.

Regardless, that's inherently also going to involve a good deal of investment. Maybe not an investment of time, but emotions or some other factor.

Re: Friended is a new social network that wants to get real

#65
post #62

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Real world relationships, those that are truly meaningful, take a lot of investment from both sides. Outside of the lab being vulnerable carries significant risk. For one, you risk being taken advantage of. This happens all the time, people are manipulated for sex, financial gain, and sometimes just for social status gains (clique shunning etc.). It's pretty common for vulnerable bonding to be misused by one or both…

I am not sure where you can draw a clear line on what is a meaningful relationship. Some people decide to get married after knowing each other for a few weeks. Some of those marriages even end up healthy and lasting long term. If anything I think it’s maintaining a real relationship that takes time not forming it.

> Some people decide to get married after knowing each other for a few weeks.

This is a high risk scenario. Being vulnerable early demonstrably can accelerate a relationship, but as I mentioned this is a high risk approach that most people would not recommend as the norm.

Re: Friended is a new social network that wants to get real

#67

> Friended wants to give users a deeper and more meaningful connection to one another, which the company believes they crave. > The idea is to give people a chance to share how they really feel in a vulnerable, one-to-one setting. In playing around with the app, I had conversations with people about how to make friends in NYC and why it sometimes feel like others don’t care about us as much as we care about them. I'm…

> There is no short conversation you can have that'll turn a stranger into the kind of friend they're seeking. I'm actually not sure this is true. And I say that because I'm actually not sure this is true: > It. Takes. Time. And I say that because of things like [0], which seems to say that connection is more about vulnerability and depth of understanding than anything else, and achieving that depth can be accelerate…

I have friends I've made through the conscious repetition of time spent together. But I've also made friends another way: we went to a festival together one weekend on Molly and LSD. Afterwards, I ended up hanging out with them practically every week and I really value that friendship too.

So there's clearly multiple paths.

Re: Friended is a new social network that wants to get real

#68

Perhaps I may be very wrong, but the name of this network, "Friended", comes from a term that Facebook turned into common vernacular. "Friend me on Facebook" or "I friended you on Facebook". If you're starting point is a term coined by your goliath competitor, I'd be concerned.

Not only that but "I'm on Friended" sounds like I'm unfriended. That's a terrible name in my book of aesthetics.

Re: Friended is a new social network that wants to get real

#69

Just what the world needs, another social network....

But the ones we have are so horrible. It's worth pursuing if there's a chance we can get one that's not horrible.

Of course, the corollary is the suggestion that any social medium starts out good, but inevitably becomes corrupted.

Re: Friended is a new social network that wants to get real

#70
Why not just make it so that people that you don't interact with get auto-unfriended over time. If you just post, post, post and have no meaningful relationship beyond parasocial bullshit, then in no time, you'd be removed from the networking system. With something like this, the network would no longer be a personal marketing system, but would actually only keep you with people that you actually interact with in meaningful ways over time, perhaps through event scheduling, and perhaps through conversation.

If you left for a long time, you'd come back to a friendless universe, sure, but only on the network. I guess that the ultimate goal of a network like this would be to get people off of it, which would be healthy for the individual, and bad for the company.

Oh well, there goes that idea.

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