
Why Facebook never happened in the UK. The case of FitFinder. - OoTheNigerian
http://oonwoye.com/2010/12/20/why-facebook-never-happened-in-the-uk-the-case-of-fitfinder/
======
petercooper
Slightly OTT headline. Something on a near FB scale actually did happen in the
UK one Internet generation ago:
<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Friends_Reunited#History>

Friends Reunited was launched in 1999 and was the UK's "Facebook before
Facebook" (or, more realistically, the UK's Classmates.com) but oriented
around people you'd attended school with rather than all friends in general
(though you could look up anyone by name). By the start of 2002, it had 2.5m
users. By the end of 2005, 15m. It then sold for £120m ($208m at the time)
before Bebo and MySpace (and much later, FB) ate its lunch.

All that aside, the site he mentions that lets you note "crushes" sounds a lot
more pleasant than one where you rate "fitties." And one university enacting
an idiotic policy does not a bad startup scene make..

~~~
axod
Completely agree, friendsreunited was massive, and if they hadn't taken their
eye off the ball, they could have been what facebook is today in the UK.

Their main mistake was to charge users for membership if you wanted to
communicate with other users. I believe it was £10/year. Even when facebook
came on the scene, they continued charging users.

(Yes, charging users directly, however much 37signals etc trumpet it, is
sometimes a very short sighted bad thing to do, particularly when free
competitors arrive as they invariably do if you have a reasonably sized
market).

So facebook _did_ happen in the UK. Plenty of startups happen in the UK.

~~~
hvs
That's also one reason classmates.com never caught on in the U.S. They charged
to do anything interesting on their site (plus it was ugly).

One thing to take away from all of these examples is that just having an
"idea" isn't enough. You have to execute it. If all you needed was an idea,
Friendster would've been successful and not MySpace... and then Facebook.

------
gst
From the article linked within the linked article: "The site attracted five
million hits in the month since its launch, but despite its success UCL asked
Martell to shut it down. After he refused, the university fined him £300 for
“bringing the college into disrepute”. If he doesn’t pay up, he risks not
being allowed to graduate."

So do I get this correct?

1) The service is not hosted at or by the university

2) The service does not seem to violate any of the university's trademarks

But:

3) The university fines the student for £300

4) The university forces the student to shutdown the service

Maybe the culture here at my university is somewhat different - but for me
this is a rather large WTF. Based on which facts should a university have the
options to fine a student or to shutdown such a service?

~~~
StavrosK
As an alum, I must say:

What the _fuck_ , UCL?

~~~
iuygtrftghyujik
UCL has shifted a little from it's original founder's views.

the presence of students while bringing a certain youthful air to the
surroundings does detract from it's professional image as a successful media
and marketing organisation

------
iuguy
The title here is a bit misleading. It should be "Why FitFinder never happened
at UCL". It's a bit much to tar all of the UK with the same brush as one
University.

~~~
mbesto
Is it just me or are most of the titles on HN lately becoming very misleading
(I suspect linkbait)? Why do people upvote these?

(for the record, I've been a HN lurker for almost two years now)

~~~
iuguy
I think it's a natural consequence of the site's increasing popularity
combined with pg's constraints on new submissions. In particular the new page
only has 30 spots and it's very easy at peak submission times to fall off.
Whereas it used to take an upvote or two to make the front page, it now takes
anywhere between 4 and 7 upvotes before you hit lots of people.

Your options (as a submitter) are either improve the content or improve the
submission. Sometimes the latter is easier than the former, especially when
it's your own material you're submitting.

------
notahacker
Sounds a lot like Facemash, which certainly got Zuckerberg into trouble.

Aaron Greenspan might have a few things to say about Harvard's lack of
tolerance towards student startups too...

------
RoyceFullerton
I created a similar site before likealittle was launched and have been trying
to promote it in Europe with a little success. It is:
<http://www.icusawme.com>

It cuts me deep to see likealittle get so much more traction, I am starting to
think it has a lot to do with cultural differences and differences on
campuses. The US has a great campus based lifestyle which is not present in
most other countries. The amount of different languages is a challenge as
well.

~~~
nailer
> icusawme.com

Having a five syllable domain name with inconsistent spelling may also have
something to do with it.

~~~
RoyceFullerton
I definitely agree this may be a problem especially after comparing syllable
count. It started out at <http://icusaw.me> before I realized the .me stuff
was not a good idea.

Which do you think the lesser evil?

~~~
StavrosK
fitfinder.com :P

Seriously, though, I think that everyone feels the same way when he labours
and pours his love into something only for another startup to come out, doing
the same thing and get more attention.

------
stbtrax
I thought everyone in the UK used Friend Face?

------
revorad
Why didn't Richard Marttel drop out of uni to do it anyway?

~~~
notahacker
From the Guardian article Oo links to: _Can he see this becoming a full-time
profession?

"No, I've got a job in the city lined-up for me. This is only a joke."_

I think Markus Frind has shown that you can make shedloads of money from
lonely (or horny) hearts, but free dating is a narrower, more competitive
niche than Facebook, and anonymous free dating is narrower still. You'd need a
serious long term vision to turn early growth for that sort of service into
something that will generate more lifetime value than a UCL degree...

~~~
revorad
So the reason Facebook never happened in the UK is that British hackers would
rather get a finance job!

------
nuggien
is it possible likealittle got inspiration from fitfinder?

~~~
RoyceFullerton
I'm pretty sure it did. The founder, Evan, did an exchange in the UK shortly
before coming back to the states and creating likealittle.

------
nopinsight
He should have done what Zuckerberg did even without the threat. Drop out and
work on it full-time.

At least, transfer to a friendlier university and take a leave of absence for
as long as needed (like the Google guys).

Opportunities like this are far rarer than plentiful bachelor's (or even PhD)
degrees . As an employer, I'd take him as a dropout with an impressive track
record instead of any bachelor's graduate any day. In the eyes of an investor
looking for great entrepreneurs, it is even clearly better to drop out in this
case.

------
macca321
The reason it was big at UCL was that the main computer room has about 100
computers all within sight of each other.

------
JonnieCache
A little note, if anyone ever posts anonymous comments about my physical
appearance in public, even complementary ones, that are identifiable as
referring directly to me, I will make it my mission to find out who they are
and persecute them until they beg me to stop.

Just putting that out there.

------
djhworld
the site probably never took off because 'fit finder' is inherently
misogynistic and a little bit creepy?

I know Zuckerburg started facebook as a way to find girls but at least the
name is more generic

~~~
narag
_'fit finder' is inherently misogynistic and a little bit creepy?_

Language barrier here. "Fit" doesn't sound so bad to me. Why is it that bad?

~~~
JonnieCache
"Fit" almost exactly == "hot"

~~~
narag
I see. It understood it like you were looking for someone that fits you. It
didn't occur to me it could mean you're looking for someone that is fit. But I
thought "fit" could be applied to males also.

~~~
JonnieCache
It could. However the point is that the word is definitely sexual in meaning,
there is only one activity that the person is being described as "fit" for.

The issue here isn't one of gender, but that the public space is not an
appropriate place for making sexual comments about strangers, just as most
people don't think that wolf whistling at people in the street is appropriate.
This amplifies that effect by putting it online, and therefore the "wolf
whistle" is permanent and world-wide.

~~~
narag
Thank you for the explanation.

OTOH, the comment by djhworld still confuses me. The bad outcome wouldn't be
misogyny but stalking or something like that. "Misogynistic" implies it's
directed against females.

~~~
djhworld
I suppose my initial comment was a bit flippant, after all women would have to
sign up to 'fitfinder' as well to receive attention from the men.

