[someplacecold]

Yes, but the story of why Facebook is successful is more involved than that, and much more useful than you give it credit for.

Facebook started because Mark Zuckerberg was notorious for hacking yearbook pictures out of a sort of Harvard-official online phonebook (a "facebook") and setting a website to mash them up against each other in a hot-or-not style competition. Capitalizing on this notoriety, he was able to replace the original "facebook" directory, commenting to the Crimson something to the effect "I can do it better, and I can do it in two weeks".

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Facebook http://scriptshadow.blogspot.com/2009/07/social-network-face... << fascinating, maybe not the best source

After that, yes, there is very probably some truth to the fact that it may have pandered to the elitism of ivy league schools, but the real lesson here is that Facebook had access to probably the best audience of any social networking site, ever -- a group of highly-social shakers and movers -- and was able to expand because there were similar needs in other similar schools. There have been probably hundreds of social networking sites that never failed to take off; this is, IMO, the key factor that separates them. The other thing is that, they were lucky about the network they were replacing; an online student directory translates very well into a MySpace alternative, as MySpace is arguably really a tool to interact in the world of MySpace. People were ready to be themselves online, they just needed good privacy control.

A startup like Diaspora does not have the luxury of a built-in user base like the Harvard student body. Nor does it replace a very extensible tool that everyone likes/needs. These are all very big disadvantages.