Thanks to Facebook’s worldwide domination (except for countries like Bangladesh, China, Iran, North Korea and Syria), it’s pretty tough for rival social network sites to enter the market.

Before Zuckerberg conquered all before him a few sites did manage to make waves – although that success was pretty short-lived.

Egotastic have compiled a list of the four weirdest networks and why they failed, and it makes for pretty entertaining reading. They don’t mention Myspace, but then again that’s a site many of us are already familiar with.

First up is SixDegrees (1997-2001), although this was long before Facebook came to be such a dominant force:

What it was: SixDegrees was Facebook before Facebook. It was based on the idea of meeting friends, romantic partners, and business contacts through the friends of your friends. Users had personal profiles. They could join groups and send messages with each other…

Why it failed: At its peak, the site had 3.5 million members. But it had trouble turning those users into money via ads, which were primitive at that point, and for which SixDegrees offered no targeting. Users weren’t on the site nearly as much as they’re on Facebook these days, so its engagement rate was low. ..Eventually, the company simply ran out of money. It was sold to Youthstream Media in 1999 for $125 million — not bad — but the new owner shut it down after the dot-com bubble burst.

Pownce, 2007-2008

What it was: Co-founded by Kevin Rose, who co-founded Digg, Pownce was a competitor to Twitter. Pownce also offered document-sharing and threaded message chains to make them easier to follow…In those ways, Pownce was more like Slack or Yammer, business alternatives to email with elements of live chat…

Why it failed: Still, Twitter was first. Every news outlet covering its launch noted this. So Pownce only had so much time and money to grow its user base and find a way to generate revenue. It ran out of time. The company was acquired by SixApart (the creators of Movable Type and TypePad), but even that company saw Pownce’s bleak future and immediately shut it down…

Capazoo, 2006-2008

What it was: Friend lists, photos, blogging, video, music…Capazoo really could have been Facebook. Founded by two Canadian brothers, the site launched at almost the exact same time and wasn’t limited to colleges like Zuckerberg’s creation. Capazoo’s users had to pay for access, but also got paid for spending time on the site and undertaking certain activities — and for bringing in new members. The site had $25 million in the bank and an exclusive content deal with National Lampoon.

Why it failed: Paying users to recruit more paid users struck some…as a pyramid scheme. The entry fee of $25 was also off-putting, even in 2007, to people used to engaging in online activities for free. But the site failed because the brothers were embezzling, taking a “commission” from investors on top of their salary. They misspent the rest of the money, increasing the staff to over 100 people, even though they had only tens of thousands of users, nowhere near a sustainable amount. They then sued each other for corruption. Everyone got laid off, the company went bankrupt, and the site was shut down. I’m not sure if the brothers are still speaking to each other.

If ever there was a blueprint for a failed business model, it would be that effort from the Canadian brothers above.

The fourth social network site mentioned would be Yahoo! 360°, but anyone who has visited Yahoo!’s home page of late can see for themselves why everything related with the site has gone to the dogs.

Just think, if any of those sites above had really taken off maybe we’d be living in a different world altogether – although I’m sure people would still find an easy way to overshare every mundane detail of their lives.

[source:egotastic]