Hacker News Reader

To be honest, I was surprised Google reached out to Friendster. Google struck a similar, but much larger, deal with MySpace, so I imagine that this won't go lightly with NewsCorp. Let's not forget that Google also owns two major MySpace competitors, YouTube and Orkut (see Orkut's astonishing growth: http://www.alexa.com/data/details/traffic_details?q=&url=orkut.com/).

Is Friendster even worth risking a major deal with MySpace?

View on HN

As you pointed out, Google already competes both directly and indirectly with myspace; NewsCorp knew that going in, and went with Google anyway. I doubt that serving ads for yet another social network would be enough to drive NewsCorp away--and I even more seriously doubt that their contract with Google would allow it.

One point about Orkut: while its growth is phenomenal, most of that growth is in non-US markets, so it does not pose any direct threat to either Friendster or myspace.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com