Changes in the Social Network Website Landscape

Social network websites evolve and change all the time. This article takes a look at a few changes in three social network sites: FriendFeed, Gaia.com, and Ning.com.

All three social network companies happen to be based in the United States and the changes happened during the country's 2008 to 2010 recession.

FriendFeed.com enables you post stuff such as photos and comments to share and discuss with your friends.

On August 10, 2009, there have been reports from news websites saying that Facebook is acquired FriendFeed. Facebook, as many of you may know, is the most used social network site worldwide (according to January 2009 Complete.com study).^[5] Facebook has an Alexa Traffic Rank of 2 (as of July 2010). Rank of 1 being the best traffic, and is held by Google.

TechCrunch was among the first few reports that broke the story on August 10, 2009. In fact, CNet.com says "TechCrunch reported the news on Monday, a matter of minutes before Facebook confirmed the acquisition."^[6]

TechCrunch said "Facebook has acquired FriendFeed, we’ve learned. We’re gathering details now. At this point details on the acquisition are still very sparse, but it’s clearly a good match."^[3]

TechCrunch posted even prior to FriendFeed posting on its blog confirming the acquisition. The FriendFeed post was cutely titled "FriendFeed accepts Facebook friend request" and it said "The FriendFeed team is extremely excited to become a part of the talented Facebook team."^[7] FriendFeed said that FriendFeed.com will continue to operate as usual.

TechCrunch initial post was also prior to Facebook's press release which says ...

"Facebook today announced that it has agreed to acquire FriendFeed, the innovative service for sharing online. As part of the agreement, all FriendFeed employees will join Facebook and FriendFeed’s four founders will hold senior roles on Facebook’s engineering and product teams."

How TechCrunch get inside scoop so fast?

Besides getting technology to enhance Facebook, Facebook also gets intellectual assets (meaning people). In particular there are a lot of smart people at FriendFeed that had previously worked at Google. The founders of FriendFeed are from Google -- such as Paul Buchheit (key player in creating Gmail), Jim Norris, Sanjeev Singh, and Bret Taylor.^[4]

Perhaps that is why FriendFeed is headquartered not too far from Google. Both headquarters are located in Mountain View, California (in the area known as California's Silicon Valley). In fact, coincidentally, FriendFeed's headquarter is pretty much right across the street from PlayDom.^[1][2] PlayDom is the maker of the number Facebook game called "Social City" (similar to SimCity). And incidentally, PlayDom acquired social game developer Merscom in April 2010.^[ref] in Facebook is headquarted in Palo Alto, California (area also is considered within the same Silicon Valley).

Some people might speculate that this is more of a talent acquisition by Facebook. FriendFeed is not a big company (about 12 employees), but the ex-Googler founders might be good assets. However, Christoper Cox, Facebook director of product said to CNET, "I wouldn't call it a talent acquisition"^[6]

How much did Facebook paid for FriendFeed? Wall Street Journal says "Facebook paid nearly $50 million for the company, in a combination cash and stock offer,"^[9] Let see... Divide that by 12 employees. Not bad for the employees at the FriendFeed social network startup.

Gaia.com was a social network whose members tended to be socially and environmentally conscious. Gaia.com is not to be confused with GaiaOnline.com which is a different anime-theme social network generally populated by teenagers.

Gaia.com had originally been spun off from zaadz.com (also a social network site). Zaadz.com had been started by Brian Johnson who is now off working on PhilosophersNotes.com. According to Brian's biography here, he had sold Zaadz.com to Gaiam (that's gaiam with a "m") in 2007. Gaiam Inc is listed on the US stock market with ticker symbol GAIA and is described in Yahoo Finance profile as "a lifestyle media company, provides a selection of information, media, products, and services to customers focusing on personal development, wellness, ecological lifestyles, and responsible media." Gaiam sells a lot of yoga DVD, clothing,and accessories.

Gaia.com continued for a few years as a social network site where members can participate in discussion, blogs, and forums. However, around March of 2010, the social network site is no more. It shut down. In its place is a site of content articles on health and wellness, spirituality, social consciousness, and the environment. Its about page refers to itself as a "beta offering". So it is probably still evolving.

As for the social network members of Gaia.com, there is not much other place they can go to find like-minded socially and environmentally conscious members -- except for Care2.com, a social network often populated by members interested in green and healthy living and who are socially and environmentally conscious. And of course Care2.com welcomes them with open arms as mentioned in the Welcome blog by Care2 CEO Randy Paynter. Care2.com started over 10 years ago in 1998 and is still running strong at 13.7 million members and growing. Care2.com is also in California's Silicon Valley (in Redwood City).

Ning.com is a network of social networks. In fact, it enables anybody to create a social network site. It's social networking platform was publicly available in October 2005. Initially it is free for anyone to start their own social networking site. But on April 2010, Ning's official blog said "we’ll be phasing out our free service".^[11] And said that more details is to come in May.

TechCrunch also said that Ning is cutting 40% of staff (about 70 people).This happened after co-founder and CEO Gina Bianchini was replaced by Jason Rosenthal.^[14]

On May 4, 2010, Ning made a blog post "Introducing Ning Pro, Ning Plus, and Ning Mini" which they say will be rolling out in July^[12] On July 20, 2010, user will be able to select from one of these three "paid" plans (no more free plans). Those existing free networks will have a grace period until August 20 to select from one of three plans.^[13]

In May 2010, Ning was recognized as among the winners of Lead411's Hottest Silicon Valley Companies.^[10] Okay, so Ning too is based in California's Silicon Valley (in Palo Alto).

I'm sure there are many lesser known social network sites that have come and gone without us even noticing it. What we saw was only the major players. And when small startups become successful, they either get sold to or get acquired by larger players. For example, FriendFeed acquired by Facebook, and Gaia.com sold to Gaiam Inc.

Or when they become popular enough, they no longer need their free services to build traffic. So they move to paid services to increase revenue. Such is the case of Ning. Or perhaps, they "need" to move to paid services in order to survive. This is after all in the aftermath of the recession and Ning did cut 40% of its staff.

Article written July 2010. By the time you are reading this, things may have changed due to the fast changing pace of the web.