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gjm comments on Will Darkcoin Have Thiel's Last Mover Advantage - Less Wrong
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Isn't this because what makes you the last one is the fact that you won?
It currently looks as if Facebook is "the last social network", at least for the time being. Why does it look like that? Because everyone uses Facebook. I bet there were lots of other social networks launched after Facebook, but no one calls whichever of them was chronologically last "the last social network".
In which case, "be the last and then you will win" is useless advice, because it is equivalent to "win and then you will win".
Case in point: before Facebook became large in Germany, there was a carbon copy called StudiVZ (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/StudiVZ). It lost out partly because it came chronologically after Facebook - it wasn't able to map connections to people outside of Germany well, which Facebook could.
I don't think that's a good description of why things played out the way they did. Friendster also died.
On the other hand Xing is still strong in the face of LinkedIn.
I probably should have emphasized the "partly". Of course, other factors also played a role in its demise, but they did try to gain footing in other European countries rather late.
Concerning Xing: Yes, you're right, this went very differently. It would be interesting to compare the LinkedIn/Xing and Facebook/StudiVZ situations to find out the differences and commonalities, but to do so in detail is beyond the scope of a comment, I think.