Friendster founder on the rise and fall of America's first big social network

I'm surprised that they only spend one sentence on the site's technical problems. In late 2003 and early 2004, just about all my friends and I were on Friendster, and speaking just for us, the crippling slowness was by far our biggest problem with the site. Even in the middle of the night, there were times that each page would take a minute or two to load. We were in college at the time, so when Facebook came to our schools, it replaced Friendster almost immediately.

Interesting part of the article ...

""..."If hundreds of people are copying you, competing with you and your stuff is not working, you're going to get in trouble."

The exception seems to be Twitter, who despite huge technical problems as a result of massive growth didn't spawn any legitimate competitors.

So many of these interviews just seem like fluff surrounding a plug for a new startup / vc fund / product / whatever.

does anyone remember 6 degrees?