There's really nothing new under the sun, but success has as much to do with timing and luck than with skill and perseverance. When I was 17 I founded soc.college.admissions for a related purpose. For those of you who don't remember USENET, think of it as the poor man's web. Mostly text only, and uncontrollable, it was eventually overrun by spammers and eclipsed by the Web. And does anyone remember sixdegrees.com in 1998? It was the first LinkedIn/Facebook site to see major publicity. The not-yet-ready public was horrified at the privacy implications, and it died.
