200k is not a lot of money, especially when competing against a multi-billion dollar company that has had a number of years head start.
Furthermore, the advantage the project provided was never really clear from a laymen's perspective. My bias belief is that most people don't love Facebook but don't have a necessary reason to move elsewhere especially when a social network relies on ones social network. IMO, G+ has a prettier UI and some cooler features. But while a lot of my network has joined, few have used it again after launch.
Ultimately if they were to have done it again years back, I think it would've been interesting to do a pure mobile social networking app. Again bias perspective, but I've noticed most of my online interactions with friends nowadays isn't through Facebook, e-mail, or Twitter, but through Whatsapp, Snapchat, Instagram (yes, I know Facebook bought them) and Vine.
200k is a lot of money regardless of circumstance.
And they were never actually competing against anyone, let alone Facebook. That is just naiveness on the part of people that believe that social anything is actually a software problem.
On nerd sites maybe. The few mentions in the mainstream press were mostly 'look how quaint, these pocket protector weirdos are building a second Facebook except that... uh... yeah just a second Facebook'.
This is just incorrect. I read articles on CNN, Huffpo, FOX News, etc. (granted, their tech sections) about it. The general sentiment was that it was supposed to be an "anti-Facebook" -- that's a very good starting point to be at, especially considering most people's general disillusionment with FB.
200k isn't a lot of money for all the ambition this project had, and I don't think it really had a good shot against Facebook — outside the HN-type audience.
Furthermore, the advantage the project provided was never really clear from a laymen's perspective. My bias belief is that most people don't love Facebook but don't have a necessary reason to move elsewhere especially when a social network relies on ones social network. IMO, G+ has a prettier UI and some cooler features. But while a lot of my network has joined, few have used it again after launch.
Ultimately if they were to have done it again years back, I think it would've been interesting to do a pure mobile social networking app. Again bias perspective, but I've noticed most of my online interactions with friends nowadays isn't through Facebook, e-mail, or Twitter, but through Whatsapp, Snapchat, Instagram (yes, I know Facebook bought them) and Vine.