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

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

#641

Post by Tepix »

abustamam wrote: post #337
Tepix wrote: post #305

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you add a web page (a PWA) to the home screen, it can do push messages on iOS since a couple of years.

The average person doesn't know this, nor what a PWA is. Source: consulted for a company that had a PWA and paid me a lot of money to make it a native app because their users didn't know how to use the PWA.

We have to thank Apple for that.

Look how they hid the option to add a PWA to the home screen. Instead of placing the option next to "Add to bookmarks" after you press "..." (especially if it recognized the page as a PWA!), you have to choose "Share" (which makes no sense!) and then scroll up (at the same time it's non-obvious that you can even scroll up) past the option "add to bookmarks" (again) and then pick the 5th option "add to home screen".

Very obvious dark pattern at work here.

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

#642

Post by xxxabcdefgxxx »

There's no way I'd choose an app like this with which I can only talk to iOS friends I have the privilege of being able to meet in person every year when I already have Signal, Telegram, WhatsApp and Discord to talk to all of my friends, including those who are faraway. And most don't use apple, this is not an apple heavy country. I would get an app with a phone tapping feature if it was a game though. Like pokemon go but less about hurrying from place to place and more about spending time together, maybe even getting to know one another through a game. Something like that. I found more friends via webfishing than pokemon go because spending cosy time together always made for a good atmosphere for making conversation.

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

#643

Post by carrot »

I understand it's a very lean MVP to start but I can definitely see the potential. I posted about this on my Threads and it blew up locally (Philippines). You should look into how much people loved it here back in its heyday and what kind of features the users really liked. In fact many people who learned about Friendster being available now have already started asking if those old favorites of theirs were still/will be available too. Hope you can look into it!

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

#644

Post by Barbing »

dgently7 wrote: post #609
Barbing wrote: post #143

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),…

evil ... yet. if op is really serious about fixing social networking he needs to figure out a way to operate it that wont enshittify. ie, public good, not for profit, something like that. as is hes already signaled he intends to enshittify it eventually ("premium features"..?) which to me is a non-starter. the problem is that a successful network beyond a certain size like this needs funding. its unfortunate but this…

Great points!

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

#646

Post by julianeon »

vlod wrote: post #635
ipaddr wrote: post #480

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There are tons of those offers. Carefull that 9k revenue doesn't come from $9000 of ads.

I'm probably being dim here, but can you elaborate a bit more. Where's the rest of the non-ad revenue coming from?

He means "careful that the 9k of revenue doesn't come from ads that the scamming owner placed so that the site could show higher traffic => ad revenue." In other words, paying $2 for ads to send people to your website, to make $1 on the ads that the ad platform now shows to your "audience."

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

#647

Post by dfyfc »

dgellow wrote: post #427
Zeebrommer wrote: post #381

> 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?

A domain being for sale can mean a lot of things. Here it meant it was auctioned on a very specific website

[flagged]

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

#648

Post by vortegne »

Barbing wrote: post #628
vortegne wrote: post #368

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Let's not praise a professional domain squatter for his ethics. I don't understand how this guy isn't getting laughed out of the room?

Mind clarifying? Also discussed: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47924178

Sure. He talks about owning a bunch of domains, trawling domain auctions all the time, earning money passively via parked domains. That's just literally what domain squatting is. Buy up domains, put ads on them, hope for people to hit the domain randomly or promote it in some ad network. No value is being created. He's generating money by being a net negative. He should be fined and banned from every owning a domain. Sadly, ICANN does not care and/or profits from it.
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