

Ask HN: Is there a market for a "Facebook circa 2006" clone? - btucker

Since the recent F8 announcements I've been pondering the question of whether there's a market for a site which is basically what Facebook was back around 2005?  This would be the point after it had photo sharing &#38; the news feeds, but before all the blurring of public/private data and the whole "crapp" platform.  It would have an incredibly straight-forward privacy model: if they're your friend they can see everything you post, if they're not they see nothing but your name (+ some other identifying detail).<p>I joined FB in the first wave in '04 and it had fantastic utility as an undergrad not to mention a crazy amount of mindshare on my campus (CMU).  I can't help but wonder if this could be done again.<p>Anyway, just curious if anyone else has been thinking along these lines?  Has the boat already sailed on social networks?<p>By the way, I have no intention of actually trying to build this.
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Terretta
You don't just need a market. You need a business model. Facebook scale is not
cheap. Facebook is innovating like crazy to figure out a business model that
can pay for that scale.

Received wisdom was that privacy was sacred. Received from early adopter tech
geeks, that is.

As Facebook matures, hundreds of millions of not-so-early adopters are
revealing a different perspective: give them one stop social sharing that
works for everyone they want to interact with, and they don't care.

This offers Facebook new business opportunities to monetize at scale, and
they're taking them. Although they're not a public company, they clearly do
want to be profitable, with no qualms about "all your base are belong to us"
in pursuit of that motive.

You can't just build a Facebook circa 2006 clone. You have to build a Facebook
circa 2006 clone that can pay for itself.

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fragmede
Ignoring the high cost of moving off Facebook, the simple friend/foe privacy
model fails when your _mother_ wants to be your FB friend and you can't hide
last weekend's drunken debauchery from her (You're a college undergrad,
remember?).

"So don't post that there" is the last thing you want as the site operator,
because you want your users generating meaningful (to them) content. Which
leads to slightly less straight-forward privacy model if you still want users
to post pics, or less content if you keep the straight-forwards privacy.
Arguably, there's more to be found on FB, but I'd rate seeing "pics of that
party you missed" as an easy way to drive sign-ups in the college crowd.

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btucker
Very true. But also remember that in '06 your mother wasn't on FB.

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dca
Is there a market? Yes (edit: otherwise articles that we've seen recently
regarding their changes wouldn't cause an uproar)

Will it completely disrupt Facebook? Not likely. At least not soon.

I've been wondering whether it might be possible to charge a small monthly fee
to cover hosting expenses for such a service, with a value add being
essentially flexible privacy controls, and lack of a business need to monetize
in ways that hurt privacy.

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petervandijck
Flexible just means confusing, usually.

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mrule
I would quickly joint a facebook clone if I thought it trustworthy, then
shrink my facebook presence as more of my friends migrated to the new
platform. Hell, people would probably use facebook to advertise such an
alternative service. Once my core group of friends migrated I would destroy my
facebook account.

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bgnm2000
I would say no, solely for the fact the people will join social networks where
their friends are, and their friends are on facebook.

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jdminhbg
Circa 2004, they were on Myspace. It's a website, not a marriage -- given
enough reason, people will move.

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thisduck
People even end marriages, given enough reason.

~~~
wlievens
Reinforcing his point even more.

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lenley
Yes. I bet there is a market for a wikipedia type soc-net.

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TheSandyWalsh
No, but there's a market for a wikipedia-style Facebook.

