PUBLIC MARKS from mozkart with tag facebook

Online history: The rise and rise of social networking Mid to Late 1990s First social networking sites emerge, such as sixdegrees.com and classmates.com. By 1999 MySpace is in operation; at the same time Hertfordshire couple Steve and Julie Pankhurst, devise Friends Reunited. 22 March 2002 Friendster is launched by Jonathan Abrams in California. For a while it is considered the No 1 social networking site. March 2003 MySpace, widely held to be the biggest social networking site of them all, is launched by Tom Anderson. 4 February 2004 Facebook is launched by Harvard student Mark Zuckerberg. Initially the network is only for Harvard students. Within two months all the Ivy League schools are included and over the next two years more universities, high schools and corporations are added. 2 September 2004 A lawsuit is filed against Zuckerberg by ConnectU founders Tyler and Cameron Winklevoss, alleging that he illegally used the concept and codes for their site after he worked for it as a programmer. January 2005 Bebo launched by UK couple Michael and Xochi Birch. The site quickly climbs to the top of the social networking league. 23 August 2005 The domain facebook.com is purchased for $200,000. March 2006 Facebook reportedly turns down an offer to buy the site for $750m, allegedly claiming it should be able to fetch $2bn. September 2006 'Wall Street Journal' reports Yahoo is in talks with Facebook to buy the site for $1bn. 22 August 2006 Facebook signs a three-year US-based deal with Microsoft to be the exclusive provider of advertising on the site in return for a revenue split. 11 September 2006 Facebook opens to everybody 13 or over with an email address. 28 March 2007 ConnectU's lawsuit is dismissed without prejudice. They immediately refile and are granted a new hearing. 3 August 2007 Six major British firms, among them Vodafone, Halifax and Virgin Media, remove their adverts on Facebook after they appear on a rotating basis on a BNP-related page. October 2007 A Tory aide, Philip Clarke, is suspended from his job after posting pictures of him applying burnt cork to another aide along with racist comments on Facebook. 24 October 2007 Microsoft buys a 1.6 per cent share in Facebook for $240m and will now begin to sell advertising for Facebook internationally as well as in the US. December 2007 Zuckerberg publicly apologises for launching the dubious advertising system Beacon on Facebook.

Okay, so, let's deconstruct this. RockYou makes money by advertising your Facebook app on Facebook, getting your app a bunch of installs. If this is the Facebook app business model, then what you are supposed to do is get enough users such that you can start selling services similar to RockYou. Fuck, this is a pyramid scheme. Getting users for your app can only make you money by virtue of helping other apps get a bunch of users. There is no money input into this system except venture capital. I remember a time, long long ago, when tech companies spent their own venture capital on eachother, so revenues were all booked from the same small pool of money. Yeah, as I recall, it didn't end well.

Lately, many companies have been wanting to develop online communities around their brand. But the question remains, do they BUILD their own or JOIN existing ones (like Facebook, MySpace, or LinkedIn)