Could have Friends Reunited been Facebook?
A few bottles of beer can bring up the most random conversations. On the way home from the Adobe Air panel we had at ExCel for Future of Web Apps, sitting on the train, Simon and I started to converse about Friends Reunited. We start to rattle out if it could have been reach the potential of Facebook? Ultimately, there are few things that obviously consider:
The Market: Was the market there? Well… yeah! I’m mean, who didn’t have an account! The need to search and connect to people you know was obviously rife. Looking back to the late 90’s, I remember a service called eCircles, very similar ideas to Facebook, but it fell flat, mostly likely, because the market wasn’t there. I believe the market / conditions were there for Friends Reunited to be the dominant force.
The Experience: A little flaky, but it was probably on the right track. Maybe if stripped a lot of the bloated features (read ‘crap’) out then it probably and made the experience better then maybe they would have had a greater user retention. I mean, Facebook you log in every 5 mins, Friends Reunited, I rarely logged in every 6 months! This was my point, in essence, Friends Reunited had the right idea; MySpace ultimately was all about ‘you’, appealing to your ego. Facebook was all about your ‘Friends’ and appealed to our psychologically ‘nosey side’ (for want of a better phrase); Exactly what Friends Reunited was aimed out too!
The Business Model: Yes, definitely the main barrier for why it didn’t get the larger market pick up. You had to pay. And once you paid, (which I did once!) all you got was contact details. And because people didn’t log in for months… maybe years… they were probably outdated or / and wrong!
The business model was fundamentally flawed. Well maybe thats a bit harsh! They were (are?) a well respected internet brand. But paying to get in touch with old Friends? I mean, I don’t like them that much!
Just imagine, with a few tweaks and a different business model, we could have have a Facebook back in 2000! But for Friends Reunited, making it free to use is most likely too little, too late.
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Tags: Facebook, Friends Reunited