In memoriam
Friendster
Born 2002. Died June 2015.
Friendster passed in June 2015, having lived thirteen years as the first social network that reached the mainstream. Born in 2002 in Mountain View, it introduced the idea of a visible social graph. At its peak it claimed more than one hundred million users. Technical failures and a disastrous redesign in 2009 drove users to Facebook. Acquired by a Malaysian company, it pivoted to social gaming in Asia. The gaming pivot failed. In 2015 the company announced it would be “taking a break.” The break never ended. He is survived by every platform that learned from his mistakes, and by the memory of what it meant to be first.
Friendster will be taking a break.
Acquired and neglected
Mourned by Those who joined before Facebook existed, early adopters who mapped their social world in circles, and anyone who remembers when a social network could still feel small.
The social graph, which Facebook perfected; the news feed, which Friendster never had; and the memory of one hundred million users who moved on.