I'll admit it up front, I absolutely abhor MySpace. Sure I have a page, but I never use it and every time I go in to that little world I end up with a headache. Friendster, on the other hand, I like and I have always liked it. Call me a crazy, but I sort of like having the people I meet filtered by an association with my friends or college or something. Let me tell you, I don't get random emails from kids via Friendster. So, in light of the personal preference and with all the Google/YouTube madness I was wondering what the heck happened to Friendster.
Gotta love the New York Times:
JONATHAN ABRAMS was in a spot. He could take the safe bet and accept the $30 million that Google was offering him for Friendster, the social networking Web start-up he began only a year earlier, in 2002. Saying yes to Google would provide a quick and stunning payout for relatively little work and instantly place the Friendster Web site in front of hundreds of millions of users across the globe.
Go for it, he did. Mr. Abrams spurned Google’s advances and charted his own course. In retrospect, he should have taken the $30 million. If Google had paid him in stock, Mr. Abrams would easily be worth $1 billion today, according to one person close to Google. And with Google’s ample resources, Friendster might have solidified its position as the pioneering front-runner in social networking. Instead, Mr. Abrams has the distinction of founding a company that is shorthand for potential unmet.
Technorati Tags: Friendster, Google, Friendster
