I'm near the end of the first phase of development of a site I've put together that is sort of a cross between citysearch and myspace (I know there are a few others out there but anyways).

I thought I would be able to get users by asking friends to join and have them ask their friends, etc. However that growth stopped rather quickly.

I'm curious if anyone knows much about how sites like facebook and/or myspace promoted there site initially. Like my site I would assume these sites faced the dilemma that when there are few users the site itself is pretty boring.

Any thoughts or suggestions are greatly appreciated.

Thanks!