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Comment by jharrison | Hacker News Reader

There have been a few threads on HN about Fridge and in at least one the question about the magical "Profit" step was asked. I'm genuinely curious how a platform specifically targeted at people who want to maintain more definitive boundaries in their group memberships makes money.

Maybe I'm just not savvy enough to get it. The only thing I can think of is targeted advertising but even that seems a little sketchy given the premise that Fridge is ultra-private. How do you capitalize on a social graph without seeming to cross the line with privacy?

I guess the other option is to eventually charge for features in a sort of Freemium model.

Anyone have any other ideas how you monetize such a thing?

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That's because profit isn't part of their bet. This is a get acquired bet, plain and simple. Surely they will spin a yarn about charging for premium features, etc -- but that's just because they have to.

Ah, yes. That IS a replacement for the "Profit" step.

Who would buy such a thing? Seems like an interested party might not like the idea that the TOS is so locked down (I'm presuming that the privacy is spelled out in a TOS, I haven't looked). Is a developed social graph really worth that much, especially if (as is mentioned in another thread) the groups are temporary, one-time use? I guess there's always the possibility of buying it and dispensing with the TOS and replacing it with a more open version.

Again, I'm just very curious. Having a hard time wrapping my head around this.

I asked similar questions in the thread announcing the Fridge two months ago and didn't get a reply that answered my question.

To paraphrase a fake Mark Zuckerberg, "I got people to share their personal information with me because I assured them I believed in privacy. When I found out how much advertisers were willing to pay for that information, I stopped believing in privacy."

EDIT: Link to my question in the previous thread about the fridge: http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1628877

Thanks, malloreon. It was indeed your unanswered question that prompted me to ask again. I appreciate Austin chiming in below.

the social graph we are building are around specific context, relationships, events, and interests that you actually care about versus linear connections that linger in a 1 to 1 friend based social graph. single Fridges might be single serving and temporal but as more are created the relationships that are built/formed/carried on to others are what is valuable.

monetization is definitely in the works with a few things cooking and not necessarily from freemium offerings only.

while the right acquisition is fine and dandy we are trying to build something that has legs...

Thanks for jumping in, Austin. I wouldn't expect a direct answer as to your monetization strategies. I was hoping others had monetization ideas that were as yet escaping me.

Can we expect any kind of data report from you? A growth chart, usage data, anything that might defend the viability of the concept to those who question whether we need another social network?

definitely... in the middle of a large rewrite to address server side things as well as front facing speed/usability issues.

after the dust settles and we get the fridge humming we should be able to have some meaningful data...

not sure the fridge is "another" social network but rather clusters of networks where people follow interests rather than other people... eh, semantics i guess but feeds into how we are growing the product.

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