Open Source software like Elgg will change how we all look at social networking I think it future.

How on earth does a social network get 2 million hits on it’s site, and then no one returns only a few weeks later?!?!? Seriously, the law of averages says that two months after people visited, some would return, just out of curiosity.

Does anyone think that they were faking all of that traffic?

Web or Bust is correct, and its a bad economy. Certainly one where companies are trying to watch their spending. However, spending upwards of 30 million on a site that really doesn’t appear to have any distinguishing characteristics and the best thing you can say is also the worst thing…they had a top 1000 site but to have that fast a falloff down to the 60,000th in a month shows they really were all smoke.

Did you work there, Web? You seem a little defensive…that is, after all, their style: http://www.sabr...artbreaker-you/

Couldn’t happen to a better “wantrepreneur”. Let’s see who else gives that guy money for another investment.

The only thing you missed about near-time is that not only did everyone get laid off, they voided all contracts and stole everyone’s severance. Each employee had a guaranteed 4 weeks pay for severance and they just stole it

Yeah I see your point. But I saw it as a contradiction as it appeared to be either or. However you explained yourself well when you stated “It’s true that failing to innovate sufficiently is also, in some sense, a big mistake”.

Do not pay attention to the homo who pretends to me. HeShe seems to have become a huge fan of me whenever I post.

DeadLocator.com

However, the case I was trying to draw attention to is not a pure 10x innovation, but one where a major or dominant player has a weak or declining user experience, creating an opportunity where none existed. I was thinking of Friendster, which lost their first-mover advantage that way, or Twitter, which came dangerously close. Poor execution can bring a competitor’s need for innovation down from an order of magnitude to a small increment.

It’s true that failing to innovate sufficiently is also, in some sense, a big mistake. One could certainly say in retrospect that the other search engines failed to invest sufficiently in innovation to prevent the rise of Google. But that’s a much harder failure to spot at the time, whereas any well-run business should be able to spot their product getting worse or users getting dissatisfied with what’s there.