I bought Friendster for $30k – Here's what I'm doing with it

Apart from this app, I'm confused how proudly this guy presents his sleazy domain-squatting shenanigans. It seems to me, setting this friendster site apart, these people are the parasites of the internet. This whole domain name business is a corrupt stinking pile of crap. Why are we tolerating this? For this friendster app, I think we can be certain, if it has any success, it will become the same crap we already have, given where this dude stands.

> He said he would sell it to me for $40k. I offered $20k, which he refused but he said if I had any domain names generating ad revenue, we could do a deal of domains and cash. He said he would accept a lower amount if I paid in Bitcoin.

> So we worked out a deal where I gave him $20k in Bitcoin and a domain that was making about $9k/year in ad revenue, and he gave me the domain friendster.com. Now I was the owner of the domain name friendster.com.

I don't know anything about how to project future ad revenue of a domain, but would this be likely to be valued at only $10,000? Unless I'm misremembering my limits, even if it made $4,500 next year and continued to cut in half every year after that, it would still account for $9,000 of revenue projecting indefinitely into the future, even bumping that up to something like 60% of the previous year's revenue it would already put it at more than $10,000 (although I don't know whether ad revenue tends to scale with inflation or not; my instinct is that the prices of ads probably would roughly increase with inflation over time)?

I know I'm nitpicking a bit about the title, but I can't help but actually be curious now that I thought of this.

I tried to search for Friendster in the App Store and didn’t see it among the first few results. Instead, App Store was returning a sponsored ad followed by normal results for all other kinds of similar annd less similar apps. Instagram, Snapchat, Yubo (never heard of), Monopoly Go (mobile game related to the board game Monopoly), BeFriend (never heard of), Tinder, Friendly Social Browser (never heard of), Facebook, and at that point I stopped scrolling the results.

For a moment I thought maybe the app was US exclusive or something and not available in my region.

But following the link from the post worked fine and I could install it.

I literally searched Friendster and the app is named Friendster but App Store gave me all kinds of other crap in the search result instead. Weird.

Anyway, installed the app finally thanks to the link.

https://apps.apple.com/us/app/friendster/id6760240416

The 'tapping phones' gimmick strikes me as something that sounds cute but will become an annoying chore that one should be able to opt out of.

Particularly given various unintended side effects -- I personally wouldn't want my connection to my deceased best friend to be subject to some decay feature on a social network.

And either way, it's not the core feature that will draw users to the site

If you want to differentiate as an alternative to toxic behemoth platforms, the framing of "Facebook but with chores" isn't it. The idea of spending time on the platform itself should be appealing -- I am not that interested in knowing how to connect with someone on the platform before knowing why I would want to be there in the first place.

See e.g. how Nextdoor doesn't lead with "you'll have to verify that you live in the neighborhood", instead it's "Connect to your neighborhood with Nextdoor"

Here's what I would do.

1. Make it QR code scanning instead of tapping so it can be a PWA.

2. Make it a PWA. This will make it accessible to many more people. Nobody wants to install an app. Nobody wants to install a PWA either but they will at least use a "web site" (a surprising number will install it if it's good).

3. Save yourself a lot of money by building it on top of the Nostr protocol. Run a relay yourself if you want guaranteed reliability. Run a Blossom server for media. Use email for auth and store people's keys for them if you want a traditional UX. Don't worry about what's on Nostr already, just build your own thing on the protocol.

Let people come and go as they please and don't lock them in. They will love you for it later.

Cool project. Have fun!

This looks exactly like what I've been looking for. I love the idea of using phone proximity as the only way to add friends.

I think it will be very important for the onboarding process to be effortless, so you should focus on that. Until you reach some kind of saturation, most people will be downloading the app because a friend wants to add them. Having a way to generate a QR download code on my phone when I "add" a friend so they can take a photo and then download it, and immediately connect us, would be huge.

Do you have any kind of development plan for new features?

> You’d have to be specifically watching the domain friendster.com at the right time to find and participate in the auction, or you’d have to actively watch gname.com daily to see this auction.

You're telling me there's no "notify me when domain X becomes for sale" service?

This reminds me of the (also defunct) Bump app.

https://blog.bu.mp/

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bump_(application)

> the usefulness of the app is limited because it seems to be intended for a small, or niche, set of users. Specifically, the app is intended for invited friends only.

Isn’t it insane that Apple refuses for an app to be listed on the App Store if it is intended to be niche? If true that’s pretty shocking

Wow, the phone tap requirement, love it! And your ethics, the best part.

Constructively, of course (if you care for feedback devolving ramble-y):

Could almost see myself using a web app version of this for kicks. But can’t sign up for another network (though would be happy to link a self hosted project, if I could stumble through setup). Apps don’t feel private (Apple neglects to offer basic firewall/other features), and not sure how someone would look at me trying to get them to register somewhere… maybe the phone tap pitch is enough? (Especially if it’d allow one-tap registration for friends inviting new friends, because the phone bump allowed for some data transfer.)

Anyway, understand self hosting is ostensibly permanently destined to be unpopular but somehow feel if the pitch were “be your own network, tap the phone, use this Friendster infrastructure/instruction set to link your networks”, I’d be more tempted.

Thank you for keeping it not evil!

I really wish more social networks would have a "fading connections" limit. So many social networks suffer from stale connections and networks, and these connections should expire after a year. Otherwise, it will permanently define a social network's content and editorial direction without algorithmic control. For example, Selena Gomez will always have 400million followers on Instagram, but she's socially irrelevant now. Same with other celebrities, like Kim Kardashian. If connections expired after a year (or 3 months or 6 months), people would have to maintain their social relevance, and it becomes a natural editorial filter, keeping the overall network fresh and relevant.

If you want a business model, require payment for long-term subscriptions or large celebrity/news accounts, but you have to overcome the network effect first. Maybe have a dozen or so permanent connections to start with, like MySpace's 8 priority friends.

Good article but sorry but it should not be normalized that you have to have an iPhone to join a social network. Something clearly wrong there.

> Fading connections. If two friends go a full year without tapping phones, the link between them softens. Not a punishment — a gentle nudge that real friendships are kept alive in person, not online.

I have this guy whom I used to be in touch with but now we meet every seven years randomly - happened two times already in completely different places and we're due for a meeting this year.

I would rather maintain this connection, because it's always fascinating to catch up after years.

Any chance of making the code open source? Would love to contribute to this and build more features needed. It’s an absolute bliss to see such a clean UI and no nonsense. I think you should consider that. Thanks for building this

> this failed Apple App Store review because of Guideline 4.2 — Design — Minimum Functionality. They said “the usefulness of the app is limited because it seems to be intended for a small, or niche, set of users. Specifically, the app is intended for invited friends only.”

This is why we need laws regulating mobile platforms. Apple shouldn't be able to dictate what you use your phone for, or what apps you can give to your users. Doesn't work that way for PCs, shouldn't work that way for computers in your pocket.

> All of this is built around the simple idea that real friendships happen when you actually meet in person.

I understand the sentiment - but this would make it useless for my closest friends - we live in different cities and countries now - and it would take years to fill in the social graph. We would all have to travel and meet everyone else.

I suppose this is alleviated by the talk to a friend of a friend feature - but does sound like it partially excludes friends with limited mobility.

I believe a cool initiative would be to create a mastodon instance with the domain

Nice. Quick hypoyhetical. Meta offers $1bn in 5 years time when you have 2m users. Will you sell?

If so this is a meta-or-dead social network.

Making it federated etc. would make me trust it more.

I attended a concert last night and was wishing for this exact kind of app, being able to quickly exchange a follow with someone you just met in real life but will otherwise never see again unless you specifically ask for their name/number, which is awkward. Could spawn some special relationships.

The previous owner bought it for $8000 (quite less for domains like this) but here is the catch. This domain has a bad reputation and a lot of negativity since it has a long history.

Those who are in domain name business knows that because it affects the value of every expired/operational domain.

When you're building a social networking site like this, when do you need to start to worry about laws from different states and countries (eg age bans, data export, etc)?

Tapping phones seems very limiting. I don’t see most of my friends in person that often, different cities etc.

I think a better alternative would be a phone number.

You only give your number to friends, which aligns with the brand and product concept.

Allows more of your friends to join via your address book, good for the app growth.

Might also mean indirectly you can’t follow a non-personal page which also aligns to the brand and product concept.

We can't seem to be able to login from the website, it requires an Apple account? The UI might not be showing up properly.

A dream I had last night was for a social network based on the deep but brief conversations we have in park benches, club toilets, hospital waiting rooms. Where we are totally open somewhat vulnerable but free from commitments. Think about the first conversation you have had with a friend, often it's the most revealing or deep one you may have.

Somewhat anonymous, short in time, one to one, with the potential to connect afterwards on outside channels. Possibly only one conversation a day allowed, and possibly only available to pre set contacts.

Too bad Apple wouldn't allow the registration requiring the tapping - it would have been cool if whole social network was a tree with a single root - the founder.

Ofc it's probably for the better if it's to have a chance to spread at least a little.

TIL ppl have domains that make $9k/yr and here i am being happy my niche app is bringing me $200/mo revenue

This is crazy, but unfortunately I don't have an iPhone otherwise I'd totally sign up.

If you meet someone this often to touch your phones, why do you even need to have an app to talk to that person? The beauty of social apps is that I can talk to someone who I can’t physically meet that often

The only thing I liked when I did use Facebook was the "wall". To be able to post on a friend's wall semi- publically where their friends can see it. Most other Facebook clones have had the idea of tagging, but it wasn't the same. (E.g. Google+)

Why no android app?

I worked with the guy that created Friendster! IIRC he made it back in ‘06/‘07 and I had one of the first test accounts. Chill dude, really smart.

I really like the idea of a “facebook before it got bad “, with just people you actually know posting about what they’re up to.

But the “tap phones” thing wouldn’t work for me.

Most of my friends and family live halfway around the world from me. I visit the states every couple years, and make a point of seeing them when I can, but the reality is I live here and they live there (a dozen different theres in half a dozen countries)

Those are the people I want an app like this to keep up with. But they’re the people your app won’t even let me add as friends.

“My wife and I met on okcupid”

… 11 years going for me. Good on you. I don’t have any other social media accounts. I’ll do my best to join up on this one. Wholesome.

Does the new owner of the domain friendster.com also own the company, the patents and the other pieces of intellectual property? The article seemed to be unclear about this.

What does "a domain that was making about $9k/year in ad revenue" look like? Is this domain one where people randomly stumble upon it and give ad views to a parking page? A website with regular use or other content that people visit for some purpose that is now under different ownership?

I have sliver of idea for social media based on curiosity and knowledge tidbits.

Each user gives itself some field of interest, maybe its makeup, maybe its molecular biology, maybe it's something else. Then the system finds similar people with same interests. There are no subreddits with abusive moderators, no rigid containers. Just that you get content you are interested in based on genuine people. Then you can like talk to them about these things or see them posting about the stuff

and you get separate feeds for each kind of stuff,probably ai categorization

I remember Friendster being very popular in parts of Latin America / Brazil and Philippines. I think you could definitely get a lot of users through the nostalgia factor.

What if somebody's phone is of an alternative type, like a flip phone, and they can't install the app needed to tap phones? Then how will they become friends with another

This seems really cool for people whose friend networks are physically located in the same place they are.

That's not me, and hasn't been for probably 20 years.

But it's a neat idea regardless.

This is quite amazing. I remember being on the original friendster way back in the day. They had so much potential. And there was also orkut.com that was even better because of the simpler UX. Then came Facebook and you all know the rest.

Most ridiculous part of the story -> You can still make money from ADs in 2026.

This sounds cool and similar to something I’ve been building! I say similar as we have different ideas and target audiences — What I’m building is a niche network specifically targeting people who are travellers or friends that like holidaying together. I don’t want to seem like I’m spamming or self promoting so will keep the link out but will share if people want.

Anyway, I digress, it would be great to connect and exchange ideas if you have the time? I really like the idea of fading connections.

I'm imagining one of those tiny libraries with a garden gnome in it with a cheap phone inside, connected to a garden gnome Friendster account.

And then it gets stolen and has a trip around the world, meeting new people.

I have the highest hopes for this. At the same time, I can’t help but be skeptical of the claims for no ads / no data selling lasting -forever-.

Build the platform, then find out how to make money on it later.

Maybe you could get together with the SpaceHey guy:

https://spacehey.com

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=25245740

Who visits those long expired domains to generate ad revenue? People nostalgic? People who hear this Friendster thing and want to check out what they are doing now?

>I don’t really care about making money from [$project], but I’d like it to eventually pay for itself.

Warning bells. Slippery slopes. I think we should know by now that social networks do not mix well with the advertising business model. It would have been nice to see that eventuality ruled out explicitly here (PS: for the future as well as just for now).

I just made a similar idea focused on games only with people next to you, https://lorehex.co/ can you reach out to me and we can connect? my website and contact info at jperla.com

That's so cool. I would have expected for the domain to go for hundreds of thousands or millions, or, more likely, not not be purchasable for some reason. I can see a future where google.com is purchased for fun by some robot in 200 years.

The real social network has become WhatsApp - lots of small private groups with nothing in them but messages from people in the group.

I love the internet.

I was going to complain about being the first given that I never used it, but indeed, Hi5 and My Space came an year later.

Forcing phone tab to add friend is genius kills boots and fake account instantly every social network dies due to fake connections.

It would be cool to leverage this proximity requirement to build a GnuPG web of trust. The one year 'weakening' would also help keep the web strong.

We don’t need another company to hold our data and then change its mind later for the correct price.

Make the social network private, end to end encrypted, not harvested by your servers

Have you spent much time thinking about how the feed will work? Balancing the “quality” and enjoyment with the prioritization of “people you met in person”. I’m sure I’m far from the only one who misses the old Facebook feed, but curious what a modern take on that would look like.

Off topic, kind of, but this was genuine and genuinely nice to read.

The tap-to-connect constraint makes this work. Every social network removes friction; this one keeps it on purpose. Won't scale to billions, but maybe that's the point.

Related: Friendster Relaunch (28 points, 3 days ago, 14 comments) https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47883307

Ask HN: How to make Friendster great? (98 points, 11 months ago, 141 comments) https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=44053119

Bought Friendster, posted about it on Medium. Can't wait for the Justin.tv live stream!

I have to ask, what is the difference between this and private WhatsApp groups?

I haven't tried it but meeting functionality for smaller groups would be good, specially for different kinds of hobby meetups.

The tapping phones thing really limits the utility of this, and I suspect gives away something about the age of the author - as one gets older, friends move away from the place where you originally made friends, often all over the world. Given I'm not allowed to connect with most of my friends via friendster, there doesn't seem to be much point in creating an account.

I visit the side but I don't have handphone so it seems like I get DQ-ed immediately. If the apps works on web will be nice.

This will be the ONLY social media my kids are allowed to use.

Probably being pedantic, but this is not buying Friendster to be precise, usually what is meant by that is that the company was bought.

In this case the domain Friendster.com was bought, and a trademark was conceded (a new different trademark), I don't know precisely the implications of the trademark though, I think it's a different trademark and you still cannot imply that you are a continuation of the previous trademark holder, it's just that you are given monopoly over that word as a trademark.

Now, is that different than buying "Friendster"? A really interesting legal question, I think it is, and I think it has relevant implications, I don't think you can for example restore the website as it was and pretend a continuation as you would if you bought the company.

Love it!!! Businesses that have genuine passion like these are the ones that really blow up…or die :-)

I had this exact app idea back in 2019, but never got around to building it. Nice work!

Well, this sounds sketchy as hell. Pass.

Sounds like a good usecase for WebNFC.

> Friendster was the first social network

Friendster was not the first social network.

sixdegrees.com had it beat by 5 years.

app is snappy and solid. missing a “invite friends” link… i know the point is in person, i’m with two people in person but had to go back to app store to find a share link.

i bought friendster for 30k, heres what it taught me about b2b sales

hmm, I have no iphone.

+1 for an android app

Hi, congrats on the launch!

Firstly, it doesn’t seem to work for me and my wife - we hold the phones together but clicking start does nothing (and we’ve accepted Bluetooth etc).

Secondly, I wonder if you’ll have a massive chicken and egg issue with the physical feature. I get it’s the main feature but could you overcome it somehow initially while still maintaining your long term “gimmick”? Like could you allow people to connect with the first X friends (5? 10? 20? Whatever that can get virality and flywheel going) or connect with as many as you want virtually for the first X months etc. You could even have the contacts fade away slowly if they don’t get verified in person etc. You might want to model out different strategies (and be extremely conservative) otherwise you’ll be relying on lottery-level luck. Good luck anyway though :)

This is an awesome idea!

The plot of Anaconda 2025, but Friendster.

Good luck with this.

I run an iOS-only app that Serves a small, specific demographic (and is free. It does not generate any revenue). It’s been shipping for a bit over two years, and has just over 1,000 users. I seriously doubt it will ever get more than a couple of thousand (a rounding error, for most folks around here). I did test it with 12,000 users, so it should handle the anticipated load.

I am writing the 2.0 version, now. I think I’ll add the “tap to connect” feature, and probably QR codes, as well.

Wow. Yes. Thank you!

> I’d like it to eventually pay for itself [...] — but that’s a problem for later.

Hard pass from me dawg. If you don't know the business model now, folks like me are tired of trusting their data to randos on the internet without a plan for sustainability. Guaranteed to end up being just another data farm.

Neat you got the domain tho.

Do we actually need social networks?

These, to me, feel like artifacts of a bygone era, now replaced by the boiled down version - group chats with friends. Telegram has every feature you need in a platform and you get the joy of "circles" as one poster mentioned, by simply having different group chats.

Plus it's not exposed to the public.

Can you please make it (and keep it) so that friendships are symmetrical? I.e., "friend" rather than "follow". IMO that's the enshittification inflection point of Facebook.

>Why I’m doing this

>My wife and I met on OkCupid. I wouldn’t have my kids without it.

But OkCupid didn't require people to tap their phones together in order to be able to chat in the app.

this is awesome. godspeed. or should i say friendspeed

thanks for bringing it back!

Interesting project. I bought the domain name for a startup I worked for in the early 2000s. It was just there to be bought from the regular registrar process -- no need to bid or pay more than a few $. This article makes me want to do something with it. I don't own the trademark.

I love the idea generally of creating a social network that's meant to not suck, but the whole tapping phones thing is bad. The major benefit of Instagram, for me, is that it allows me to maintain relationships with people I am unable to physically see for long periods. I don't need social media to stay in touch with people I am physically present with, I need it for bridging distances.

Pretty cool implementation, except when I read

> a gentle nudge that real friendships are kept alive in person, not online

my skin crawled. I live a fulfilling, creative life. I'm married, have kids, the whole nine yards. My best friendships are with people I know almost entirely online, or haven't physically seen in years because we live on different continents.

I have little interest in most of the people I see regularly, because we're friends only because our kids are in the same classes.

> So I created an iOS app

CTRL-F "android" "linux" "git" 0 results

sigh

PLEASE if you are developing only for the Mac ecosystem, you should be required to put (Mac only) in your title so the rest of us don't completely WASTE our time.

> My wife and I met on OkCupid. I wouldn’t have my kids without it. Websites like that genuinely change the course of people’s lives — people meet, fall in love, build families. That’s incredible to me.

> If Friendster helps even a few people find that kind of connection, it will have been worth it.

Did you tap phones for OkCupid? The type of network you are building does not work that way -- you will not build the same types of connections in-person as you can online. I hope it goes well, but it's not the same type of thing.

judging from what i hear people say. all you have to do is be able to display who's online from your friends list, and a chronologically ordered list of their posts. thats it. the major platforms are optimising for ads so much they cant even achieve this level of basic functionality

can rename it botster

Could you make it so you can have group chats but you can invite anyone you’ve tapped before and they can all talk together (but still not be able to talk outside the group chat)

>only way to make friends is actually make friends

Good luck to the app, but I'll never use this.

The overwhelming majority of people I know with whom I want to have long digital conversations with are also a minimum of 500 kilometers away from me.

Honestly, nothing could make me trust yet another centralised and closed source social network.

on the fading connection and monetization - you could let people pay to re-up the connection from fading as opposed to meeting in person again first, and its makes them really think about whether meeting in person is worth happening again or would ever happen again, is the connection itself valuable in another way any way

on instagram, there is a social disincentive to unfollow people and you can also make someone else unfollow you in a couple ways (the button that does just that, as well as blocking someone for a second and unblocking them), doing these actions has a real cost to confrontation. people you thought you would never see again will see you again and say "I thought we were following each other???? oooo :O ... ooooh >:O"

you are making that activity a first class citizen, with no presumption of ill will behind it, this has value to it

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He gave the guy $20k dollars in bitcoin (I can’t say how much bitcoin that is because it fluctuates too much to be a stable currency), to buy a dead domain that makes $9k a year in at revenue.

What an absolute garbage economy.

>Can you believe he bought the domain friendster.com for only $7456? What a crazy deal!

No, I can't.

For that price you could buy 2000 to 10000 meals to people in extreme need. Or finance education of children who would desperately need some support.

Instead of that, wealthiest people in this planet will drop money on buying virtually enforced scarcity on random string where they can throw more advertisements on the world.

Now it's not the main theme of the article, but I can't make otherwise than thinking how off the rails this feels compared to what actual human needs we have out there.

Even the idea of launching a new closed garden of virtual contact network feels rather aligned with this principle of manufactured scarcity.

People who were trusted with so much money should start looking at what good they can do with it for benefit of mankind, instead of throwing significant amount in pet project that will likely not bring anything novel to humanity.

Now maybe the author of the article already do that also, if they have so much money to drop $30k without much more worry, they probably could afford to do both. If that's the case, hat off. Otherwise, seize the opportunity to reflect what kind of legacy is built through your investments. Judge in your own term, but at least step back, consider where the rest of humanity lies, and how it sounds now.

In a world where I am trying to use my phone much less due to ingress of tracking, destroying my mind etc having a social media where its required is a bit of a no-no for me tbh. Additionally I feel like this puts more friction on those of us that are shy and weird, for us the internet and online places are where we can be ourselves. I wouldn't ask you if I could follow you on Twitter, I'd just do it because I find your stuff interesting. Putting a hurdle in the way of connection might sound daft but is enough for many not to use it or miss-connections.

For me the special sauce that's been taken away from SM is just seeing my friends stuff, I want to see your dog with out it having to be a 2min video with onscreen graphics, SEO keyword optimisation in the post title and brand tags. Show me your fluffy dog updates, just dont force me to ask you about it first.