Friendster Relaunch | Hacker News Reader

Friendster Relaunch

friendster.com

30 pointslemonlym16 comments

I remember when the original Friendster came out, everyone I knew signed up, only to realize...wait, what can we actually do with it other than look at our social graph?

If Friendster had figured out a stickier use case, they could have preempted MySpace and Facebook before they ever got going.

I went home from a bar in 2003 knowing only the first name of a wonderful girl I chatted with that night, and thanks to Friendster I was able to locate her in a city of over 8MM people and find a way to contact her. We are married with a family now.

great story!

I'm sure you've heard a few. Thank you though!

‘Friendster is invite-only. You can join by linking with a real-life friend in person.‘

Good idea but not practical for me as my friends and family are widely dispersed.

I don't really need a social network for the people I'm already in close proximity with. But, I'm glad they're making an attempt here, at least.

A nice and familiar domain with tons of nostalgia, but the app isn't even an MVP! You can vibe code something way richer in less than a day, to be honest! If this took you months, then, wow!

I think people have become used to the scrollable social media now.

Aaaaand no Android support. Dead on arrival for me.

No web support, no Android support, literal shame for a project of this potential value with a name known across the world, I can't believe the management gave the green light for this.

Probably got self-brainwashed by the SaaS era "start with a MVP", nope, it's 2026, no one gives a damn about a poorly made MVP.

So, there's not even a login feature! You start creating a new profile, and then you can associate an Apple account, and then it overwrites everything! There's no way to search for people and add them as friends. No public feed either. This is a nothingburger!

You know what? Good for Friendster. It can't be worse than what we have now. But, also, good luck with that. Facebook may be terrible (it is definitely terrible), but it's where everybody's friends are. I dunno how you reproduce that network effect today, but maybe they do.

They seriously did a relaunch without being compatible with most of the planet? iOS only, who does that in 2026, get competent Devs friendster because you'll die again :/

Can't believe they'll waste an opportunity like this with non-sense, it genuinely make me mad.

It's not even a good iOS app, to be honest. I can vibe-code this in an hour and get a more visually-pleasing app with Android support, too. They only have a good domain with plenty of nostalgia, and that's it! If this took them months, then it's dead on arrival, truly!

how the hell is this possible :/ I hope whoever is in charge of this reads HN and actually take those critics seriously because I genuinely feel it will end up dead soon starting that way, why even start it half-assed? what's even the point? To save 2 weeks of dev?

This is Hacker News, and launches here are taken seriously - you don't release too early, that's it! Do you even know what the concept of MVP is?! Go post on Facebook to get positive "feedback" from people who won't even check the app! Stoicism, especially the emotional kind, is crucial for successful founders!

Reply on news.ycombinator.com