Friendster Fumbling

Friendster has a love-hate relationship with most everyone I've ever encountered that uses the system. For the most part, the excitement surrounding Friendster seems to set in early in the process and then quickly dissipates. Any user that's attempted to stay committed to the service has surely encountered a number the problems, usually starting with the speed issue and onto any assortment of other gripes.

In many respects, Friendster has been out of the limelight for some time now. Though viral marketing system inherent to the application itself has kept traffic numbers up there, there is not nearly the same level of press coverage the once-darling used to garner. Some are inclined to believe that more recent actions indicate an even worst fate in the near future.

danah boyd posts some interesting comments (also here):

Friendster realizes that it has lost the attention of its earliest adopters. This morning, Friendster sent a message to a select number of people that they labeled as “SuperFriends.” It’s a usability survey where they are asking for users’ advice on an email campaign. There are four different potential emails that they sent out as screen shots.

[...]

The tone of these messages is desperate, begging for attention of the original early adopters - the ones that Abrams told me were ruining his system. One focuses on Burning Man types; one mocks the old Power Point COO; one charges non-users with harming children; one is a desperate love poem. They’re hyper American-centric, SF-centric, white collar, wannabee hipster, intentionally attempting sarcasm (and clarifying that below) and complete with 80s references.

I guess Friendster isn’t happy with the majority of its users being young and from Asia. Does this mean that Friendster has its tail between its legs about its early egotistical behavior? Apparently, viral marketing isn’t working well enough anymore.

Source: Many 2 Many, "Friendster is desperate; viral marketing failed"

It really begs the question, though. How large can an online community become before its utility breaks down? This breakdown is likely to happen on 2 fronts, technical and social. From the technical point of view, complex systems require complex solutions. At the rate some of these systems are cropping up, one must always wonder how scalable the system is (especially when there are already visible cracks in the system). Socially, we've got things like Dunbar and other group metrics that seem to indicate that beyond a certain size, utility falls off considerably.

Is Friendster suffering a mid-life crisis or pointing to a threshold?