danah boyd | apophenia

John Batelle is kindly spreading gossip that Friendster is moving away from dating. I know that they’re hiring pretty rapidly (i keep hearing from folks who are interviewing there). Also, the customer service thing this morning makes me think that they’re finally taking ahold of customer service… maybe?

I think it will be interesting to see what this means. The Fakester Revolution folks have died down. Many of the early hipsters who flooded Friendster have gotten bored and left (i.e. only login when necessary). Its popularity in Asia is soaring. And i have to imagine that the reason that nothing has changed in forever (either speed-wise or functionality-wise) is an indicator that large changes are in the works.

A while back, i posited that “One year from now, i suspect that the current incarnation of Friendster will have faded from people’s memories, a fad that was fun to play with…” Given these rumblings, i’m curious to see if Friendster is willing and able to take this fad to the next level, if they will take hold of the evolution. Because, so far, i’ve only seen improvements on (or destructions of) the original ideas.

[Note: evolving social networks software doesn't simply mean expanding into other domains beyond dating...]