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I think OkCupid has been doing to POF what Facebook did to MySpace. Mediocre products that serve a real need will survive for a while, but long-term people grav

by staunch 15y ago

I think OkCupid has been doing to POF what Facebook did to MySpace. Mediocre products that serve a real need will survive for a while, but long-term people gravitate towards quality. That may all end now that they've been acquired by a mega corp though. Look at this trend: http://trends.google.com/trends?q=okcupid%2C+plentyoffish&ctab=0&geo=us&geor=all&date=all&sort=0 http://trends.google.com/trends?q=okcupid%2C+plentyoffish&#3...

nostromo 15y ago
I also wonder if there are just limited lifespans for these types of sites. Dating, community (slashdot->kuro5hin->digg->reddit->hn), social networks (friendster->myspace->fb), etc. These sites seem to move in waves like fashion or gentrification.
- sliverstorm 15y ago
  Like this? http://blog.bumblebeelabs.com/social-software-sundays-2-the-evaporative-cooling-effect/ http://blog.bumblebeelabs.com/social-software-sundays-2-the-...
  - adriano_f 15y ago
    That's a great read, silverstorm. Thanks!
- staunch 15y ago
  Friendster dropped the ball technically, at one point they had 10 minute page load times. Kuro5hin was never as popular as Slashdot. Slashdot didn't evolve their submission model and was left in the dust. Digg screwed up their product and pissed off their community. MySpace sacrificed user experience for in the name of short term profit from pageviews/ads. HN hasn't replaced Reddit except for a tiny minority of startup/hacker people (many of whom continue to use Reddit). I think it only appears that users are fad driven, when in reality they're just smart enough to move on to better options.
  - esrauch 15y ago
    Even if it wasn't fad driven, there seems to be a significant trend of the number one site getting eclipsed by new up and comers. Whether that trend is coming to a halt with Facebook or not is debatable (they seem to be staying on the leading edge and more than willing to adapt and take in the ideas any competitors would push, along with the most extreme network effect possible). On the other hand, I doubt that reddit isn't going to suffer the same fate that slashdot and digg did when something better comes along, though I doubt they are going to make as drastic a mistake as digg did.
yakto 15y ago
Change from search terms to websites, and Google trends tells a different story: http://trends.google.com/websites?q=okcupid.com%2C+plentyoffish.com&geo=US&date=all http://trends.google.com/websites?q=okcupid.com%2C+plentyoff... My guess is googling for "okcupid" all as one word is relatively more frequent than "plentyoffish" as one word, and here's confirmation using Google Insights for Search, which allows OR queries: http://www.google.com/insights/search/#q=%28okcupid%20%2B%20%22%60ok%20cupid%22%29%2C%28plentyoffish%20%2B%20%22plenty%20of%20fish%22%29&cmpt=q http://www.google.com/insights/search/#q=%28okcupid%20%2B%20... As much as the PoF guy's pontificating gets old to me, and agree with your Facebook-MySpace analogy, he's still killing OKCupid traffic-wise.

by staunch 15y ago

nostromo 15y ago

I also wonder if there are just limited lifespans for these types of sites. Dating, community (slashdot->kuro5hin->digg->reddit->hn), social networks (friendster->myspace->fb), etc. These sites seem to move in waves like fashion or gentrification.

sliverstorm 15y ago
Like this? http://blog.bumblebeelabs.com/social-software-sundays-2-the-evaporative-cooling-effect/ http://blog.bumblebeelabs.com/social-software-sundays-2-the-...
- adriano_f 15y ago
  That's a great read, silverstorm. Thanks!
staunch 15y ago
Friendster dropped the ball technically, at one point they had 10 minute page load times. Kuro5hin was never as popular as Slashdot. Slashdot didn't evolve their submission model and was left in the dust. Digg screwed up their product and pissed off their community. MySpace sacrificed user experience for in the name of short term profit from pageviews/ads. HN hasn't replaced Reddit except for a tiny minority of startup/hacker people (many of whom continue to use Reddit). I think it only appears that users are fad driven, when in reality they're just smart enough to move on to better options.
- esrauch 15y ago
  Even if it wasn't fad driven, there seems to be a significant trend of the number one site getting eclipsed by new up and comers. Whether that trend is coming to a halt with Facebook or not is debatable (they seem to be staying on the leading edge and more than willing to adapt and take in the ideas any competitors would push, along with the most extreme network effect possible). On the other hand, I doubt that reddit isn't going to suffer the same fate that slashdot and digg did when something better comes along, though I doubt they are going to make as drastic a mistake as digg did.

yakto 15y ago

Change from search terms to websites, and Google trends tells a different story: http://trends.google.com/websites?q=okcupid.com%2C+plentyoffish.com&geo=US&date=all http://trends.google.com/websites?q=okcupid.com%2C+plentyoff... My guess is googling for "okcupid" all as one word is relatively more frequent than "plentyoffish" as one word, and here's confirmation using Google Insights for Search, which allows OR queries: http://www.google.com/insights/search/#q=%28okcupid%20%2B%20%22%60ok%20cupid%22%29%2C%28plentyoffish%20%2B%20%22plenty%20of%20fish%22%29&cmpt=q http://www.google.com/insights/search/#q=%28okcupid%20%2B%20... As much as the PoF guy's pontificating gets old to me, and agree with your Facebook-MySpace analogy, he's still killing OKCupid traffic-wise.