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Why Facebook never happened in the UK. The case of FitFinder.
- nuggien 16y agois it possible likealittle got inspiration from fitfinder?
- minalecs 16y agoprobably but if not, I imagine missed connections for a college crowd is hardly a innovative or unique idea. Another example of how important execution is.
- RoyceFullerton 16y agoI'm pretty sure it did. The founder, Evan, did an exchange in the UK shortly before coming back to the states and creating likealittle.
- gst 16y agoFrom the article linked within the linked article: "The site attracted five million hits in the month since its launch, but despite its success UCL asked Martell to shut it down. After he refused, the university fined him £300 for “bringing the college into disrepute”. If he doesn’t pay up, he risks not being allowed to graduate." So do I get this correct? 1) The service is not hosted at or by the university 2) The service does not seem to violate any of the university's trademarks But: 3) The university fines the student for £300 4) The university forces the student to shutdown the service Maybe the culture here at my university is somewhat different - but for me this is a rather large WTF. Based on which facts should a university have the options to fine a student or to shutdown such a service?
- derefr 16y agoAnd even then, if I was presented these options, I would take the third path: transfer to another university to finish my degree.
- StavrosK 16y agoAs an alum, I must say: What the fuck, UCL?
- iuygtrftghyujik 16y agoUCL has shifted a little from it's original founder's views. the presence of students while bringing a certain youthful air to the surroundings does detract from it's professional image as a successful media and marketing organisation
- DannoHung 16y agoCould be a mad-with-power office within the uni that decided to try and intimidate a student. Universities usually have review boards about this sort of thing before actually taking action though.
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- richardburton 16y agoI couldn't believe it when it was shut down. It spread like crazy across Edinburgh. I read an article saying that Richard Marttel wanted to go into bank programming. Why?
- petercooper 16y agoSlightly OTT headline. Something on a near FB scale actually did happen in the UK one Internet generation ago: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Friends_Reunited#History http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Friends_Reunited#History Friends Reunited was launched in 1999 and was the UK's "Facebook before Facebook" (or, more realistically, the UK's Classmates.com) but oriented around people you'd attended school with rather than all friends in general (though you could look up anyone by name). By the start of 2002, it had 2.5m users. By the end of 2005, 15m. It then sold for £120m ($208m at the time) before Bebo and MySpace (and much later, FB) ate its lunch. All that aside, the site he mentions that lets you note "crushes" sounds a lot more pleasant than one where you rate "fitties." And one university enacting an idiotic policy does not a bad startup scene make..
- OoTheNigerian 16y agoSlightly OTT headline. I would call it copy-writing :). On a serious note, it concerns much more than UCL. There is quite a lack of support for young startups especially in UK Universities (First hand experience). With the amount of tech talent UK has' this kind of incident shows why a lot of big things are not coming from this end. I just wish the person that made this call would be called out by a major publication. All that aside, the site he mentions that lets you note "crushes" sounds a lot more pleasant than one where you rate "fitties." I am sure he would have got round to sorting that out. Of course removed it from .co.uk. too.
- axod 16y agoCompletely agree, friendsreunited was massive, and if they hadn't taken their eye off the ball, they could have been what facebook is today in the UK. Their main mistake was to charge users for membership if you wanted to communicate with other users. I believe it was £10/year. Even when facebook came on the scene, they continued charging users. (Yes, charging users directly, however much 37signals etc trumpet it, is sometimes a very short sighted bad thing to do, particularly when free competitors arrive as they invariably do if you have a reasonably sized market). So facebook did happen in the UK. Plenty of startups happen in the UK.
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- iuguy 16y agoThe title here is a bit misleading. It should be "Why FitFinder never happened at UCL". It's a bit much to tar all of the UK with the same brush as one University.
- mbesto 16y agoIs it just me or are most of the titles on HN lately becoming very misleading (I suspect linkbait)? Why do people upvote these? (for the record, I've been a HN lurker for almost two years now)
- iuguy 16y agoI think it's a natural consequence of the site's increasing popularity combined with pg's constraints on new submissions. In particular the new page only has 30 spots and it's very easy at peak submission times to fall off. Whereas it used to take an upvote or two to make the front page, it now takes anywhere between 4 and 7 upvotes before you hit lots of people. Your options (as a submitter) are either improve the content or improve the submission. Sometimes the latter is easier than the former, especially when it's your own material you're submitting.
- notahacker 16y agoSounds a lot like Facemash, which certainly got Zuckerberg into trouble. Aaron Greenspan might have a few things to say about Harvard's lack of tolerance towards student startups too...
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- RoyceFullerton 16y agoI created a similar site before likealittle was launched and have been trying to promote it in Europe with a little success. It is: http://www.icusawme.com http://www.icusawme.com It cuts me deep to see likealittle get so much more traction, I am starting to think it has a lot to do with cultural differences and differences on campuses. The US has a great campus based lifestyle which is not present in most other countries. The amount of different languages is a challenge as well.
- nailer 16y ago> icusawme.com Having a five syllable domain name with inconsistent spelling may also have something to do with it.
- RoyceFullerton 16y agoI definitely agree this may be a problem especially after comparing syllable count. It started out at http://icusaw.me http://icusaw.me before I realized the .me stuff was not a good idea. Which do you think the lesser evil?
- StavrosK 16y agofitfinder.com :P Seriously, though, I think that everyone feels the same way when he labours and pours his love into something only for another startup to come out, doing the same thing and get more attention.
- apl 16y agoHave to agree with this assessment. First time I tried to decipher it, the domain appeared to be a mildly self-destructive command aimed at a fellow called Icu.
- tadhg42 16y agoicuucme.com would be better, although still a bit of a stretch. Great domain if anyone is starting a hide'n'goseek website!
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- djhworld 16y agothe site probably never took off because 'fit finder' is inherently misogynistic and a little bit creepy? I know Zuckerburg started facebook as a way to find girls but at least the name is more generic
- arethuza 16y agoI'm glad to see it's not just me that had this reaction - sounds like a potential source of sexual harassment litigation which is probably why the university in question shut it down in case they were perceived to be complicit by allowing the service to keep running.
- rms 16y ago>I know Zuckerburg started facebook as a way to find girls No, that's the story from the movie. Zuckerburg started facebook because he wanted to make a startup.
- redthrowaway 16y agoDon't believe much of anything from TSN. It's based off The Accidental Billionaires, which in turn was based almost exclusively off Eduardo Severin's recounting of events. Given the role Severin has in the film, of the kind but naive kid who gets screwed by the evil genius, it's not hard to see that the portrayal of other characters might be similarly lopsided. Zuckerberg started facebook for the same reason most other people launch [successful] tech startups -- because it was interesting. He's been dating the same girl since before he launched facebook. --- I just realized you might have meant that the initial idea of what facebook would represent to its users was a way to find chicks. That might be more likely, but I've never seen anything to suggest that's the case. I'd appreciate a source for that claim, if indeed there is a decent one.
- stbtrax 16y agoI thought everyone in the UK used Friend Face?
- nopinsight 16y agoHe should have done what Zuckerberg did even without the threat. Drop out and work on it full-time. At least, transfer to a friendlier university and take a leave of absence for as long as needed (like the Google guys). Opportunities like this are far rarer than plentiful bachelor's (or even PhD) degrees . As an employer, I'd take him as a dropout with an impressive track record instead of any bachelor's graduate any day. In the eyes of an investor looking for great entrepreneurs, it is even clearly better to drop out in this case.
- JonnieCache 16y agoA little note, if anyone ever posts anonymous comments about my physical appearance in public, even complementary ones, that are identifiable as referring directly to me, I will make it my mission to find out who they are and persecute them until they beg me to stop. Just putting that out there.
- macca321 16y agoThe reason it was big at UCL was that the main computer room has about 100 computers all within sight of each other.
- revorad 16y agoWhy didn't Richard Marttel drop out of uni to do it anyway?
- notahacker 16y agoFrom the Guardian article Oo links to: Can he see this becoming a full-time profession? "No, I've got a job in the city lined-up for me. This is only a joke." I think Markus Frind has shown that you can make shedloads of money from lonely (or horny) hearts, but free dating is a narrower, more competitive niche than Facebook, and anonymous free dating is narrower still. You'd need a serious long term vision to turn early growth for that sort of service into something that will generate more lifetime value than a UCL degree...
- revorad 16y agoSo the reason Facebook never happened in the UK is that British hackers would rather get a finance job!