I actually had never seen anyone do anything quite like it since until now -- what are these other ones?

Social is very tricky -- network effect is everything, and the founders ability to time and push that out is a combo of luck and skill. Just looking at the history of chat services is a clear demonstration of that.

Thus I'm not saying nitester was guaranteed to be successful, but the concept was the same, the context was good (I was in college and Facebook didn't exist yet so social was open), and I had the friend networks and already threw big parties/raves. I just regret not giving it a bigger shot. It did help me get into MIT for grad school so at least something good came out of my laziness :)