apophenia

friendster entries

October 27, 2005

friendster is finally going to charge

Word on the street (a.k.a. trusted friends) is that Friendster is finally going to charge by the end of the year. The current version will be available to "elite" users who pay what sounds like $5 a month. There will be a minimalist version available for free. ::sigh::

It's kinda ironic given that some of the folks i know are slowly starting to play again but definitely not enough to pay that kinda money since they're not looking to get laid. They just think that the stalking aspect is kinda fun and playful. I guess the gay boys might pay. But who else? Who's still using it that addictively?

Category: friendster

Posted by zephoria at 3:38 PM | Comments (12) | TrackBack (0)

October 24, 2005

my Friendster publications

Various folks have been asking me about my Friendster publications and i thought i'd do a simple round-up for anyone who is trying to learn about Friendster. Below are directly relevant papers and their abstracts (or a brief excerpt); full citations can be found on my papers page. Please feel free to email me if you have any questions.

"None of this is Real: Networked Participation in Friendster" by danah boyd - currently in review (email for a copy), ethnographic analysis of Friendster, Fakesters, and digital social play

Excerpt from introduction: Using ethnographic and observational data, this paper analyzes the emergence of Friendster, looking at the structural aspects that affected participation in early adopter populations. How did Friendster become a topic of conversation amongst disparate communities? What form does participation take and how does it evolve as people join? How do people negotiate awkward social situations and collapsed social contexts? What is the role of play in the development of norms? How do people recalibrate social structure? By incorporating social networks in a community site, Friendster introduces a mechanism for juxtaposing global and proximate social contexts. It is this juxtaposition that is at the root of many new forms of social software, from social bookmarking services like del.icio.us to photo sharing services like Flickr. Capturing proximate social contexts and pre-existing social networks are core to the development of these new technologies. Friendster is not an answer to the network question, but an experiment in capture and exposure of proximate relations in a global Internet environment. While Friendster is not nearly now as popular as in its heyday, the lessons learned through people's exploration of it are increasingly critical to the development of new social technologies. As a case study, this paper seeks to reveal those lessons in a manner useful to future development.

Profiles as Conversation: Networked Identity Performance on Friendster by danah boyd and Jeffrey Heer - 2006 HICSS paper on how Friendster Profiles become sites of conversation

Abstract: Profiles have become a common mechanism for presenting one's identity online. With the popularity of online social networking services such as Friendster.com, Profiles have been extended to include explicitly social information such as articulated "Friend" relationships and Testimonials. With such Profiles, users do not just depict themselves, but help shape the representation of others on the system. In this paper, we will discuss how the performance of social identity and relationships shifted the Profile from being a static representation of self to a communicative body in conversation with the other represented bodies. We draw on data gathered through ethnography and reaffirmed through data collection and visualization to analyze the communicative aspects of Profiles within the Friendster service. We focus on the role of Profiles in context creation and interpretation, negotiating unknown audiences, and initiating conversations. Additionally, we explore the shift from conversation to static representation, as active Profiles fossilize into recorded traces.

Vizster: Visualizing Online Social Networks by Jeffrey Heer and danah boyd - a 2005 InfoVis paper about visualizing Friendster data (including arguments about using visualization in ethnography and recognizing the value of play in visualization)

Recent years have witnessed the dramatic popularity of online social networking services, in which millions of members publicly articulate mutual "friendship" relations. Guided by ethnographic research of these online communities, we have designed and implemented a visualization system for playful end-user exploration and navigation of large-scale online social networks. Our design builds upon familiar node-link network layouts to contribute techniques for exploring connectivity in large graph structures, supporting visual search and analysis, and automatically identifying and visualizing community structures. Both public installation and controlled studies of the system provide evidence of the system's usability, capacity for facilidiscovery, and potential for fun and engaged social activity.

Public Displays of Connection by Judith Donath and danah boyd - a 2004 BT Journal article on how people publicly perform their social relations

Abstract: Participants in social network sites create self-descriptive profiles that include their links to other members, creating a visible network of connections — the ostensible purpose of these sites is to use this network to make friends, dates, and business connections. In this paper we explore the social implications of the public display of one's social network. Why do people display their social connections in everyday life, and why do they do so in these networking sites? What do people learn about another's identity through the signal of network display? How does this display facilitate connections, and how does it change the costs and benefits of making and brokering such connections compared to traditional means? The paper includes several design recommendations for future networking sites.

Friendster and Publicly Articulated Social Networks by danah boyd - a 2004 short CHI paper staking out what Friendster is.

Abstract: This paper presents ethnographic fieldwork on Friendster, an online dating site utilizing social networks to encourage friend-of-friend connections. I discuss how Friendster applies social theory, how users react to the site, and the tensions that emerge between creator and users when the latter fails to conform to the expectations of the former. By offering this ethnographic piece as an example, I suggest how the HCI community should consider the co-evolution of the social community and the underlying technology.

Category: friendster

Tags: publications friendster yasns

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August 16, 2005

ephemeral data

At some point last night, Tantek asserted that open data environments are more valuable than closed garden walled systems and i disagreed. In the process, i found myself articulating the value of closed systems during the exploratory innovation stage.

A lot of what's going on in the Web 2.0 sphere is experimentation. Not only are developers learning how to structure network systems and tagging systems and whatnot, so are participants. One of Tantek's concerns is that in a closed system, we lose all of the data when the system fails. My response: fantastic! There are consequences to the learning phase. On the technological side, we build things that don't scale or aren't extensible enough as the systems evolve. But on the social side, we try things out and deal with the scars of being burnt.

With Friendster pretty much dead to most early adopters, some lament the amount of data that is now closed off. Personally, i rejoice. I'm glad that this data is not available on archive.org. I'm glad that this data is virtually dead. It was not produced to be persistent - it was produced to be ephemeral. People are not yet comfortable in negotiating the boundaries between ephemeral and persistent - they don't know how to speak for all space and time. So, when they are engaging in ephemeral acts, why make it persistent simply because you can? Wandering around early adopter Profiles nowadays is a bit eerie. 2003 wasn't that long ago and yet there's still a graveyard effect - time stood still. On one hand, i want to wander the graveyard in 2013 but i'm very OK with having to step inside to look around rather than running across 2003 every time i search for someone.

In the techno-centric world, we relish persistence yet that is so antithetical to the way in which we normally negotiate the social world. Information production and identity performance are not the same thing even if they both boil down to bits. Often, communication, sharing and identity performance are crafted in the moment for the moment, not for all of eternity.

So i'm kinda happy for the closed walls while we work the social issues out. I will enjoy the archeological digs, but i definitely want to have to visit them rather than be faced with the past and present simultaneously forever.

While i believe that creating data boundaries is good in the exploration phase, this of course does not mean that i believe companies should own people's data. It's important not to confound those two issues. Closed walls can have social value that is not about economic value.

Category: friendster

Tags: persistence

Posted by zephoria at 11:24 AM | Comments (1) | TrackBack (1)

May 7, 2005

seeking early Friendster screenshots

When i started "studying" Friendster, i wasn't studying it. I wasn't in school and i had vowed never to go back. By the time i started back in school, i had stopped studying it. The result is that while i have amazing amounts of data, i was not very good at collecting all of the data that i would like to have. One of the things that i'm missing is screenshots from early days of the service, such as when there was a popularity contest on the front page. Does anyone have a collection of screenshots of various Fakesters, front pages, anything? I would be stoked if anyone could send me any material they have from 2003 - friendster [at] danah.org

Category: friendster

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May 1, 2005

Vizster

When Jeff Heer and i started talking about Friendster, we talked extensively about the practices of users - what they were trying to do, why, how, etc. Jeff used my ethnographic findings to build a visualization of Friendster that would enable users' practices while giving them a new view of the data at hand. We used my data and his data (everything that was visible to our accounts last year) on top of Prefuse to build an interactive visualization that we deployed at Liquidate. The result is beautiful and those who were very active Friendster users found the tool utterly fascinating as they reinvestigated their networks. Of course, those who were never impressed by Friendster simply saw Vizster as another pretty toy. My favorite quote from one of our non-heavy users in the user studies was "Friendster gives you your two hours of fun, and this doubles it."

Anyhow, it's a great experiment in the ways in which visualizations can be connected to ethnographic work and then reinserted into the community. For those interested in more, here's the Info Viz paper we submitted and the Vizster project page.

Category: friendster

Posted by zephoria at 8:37 PM | Comments (2) | TrackBack (1)

March 3, 2005

Friendster blogs (powered by Typepad)

I have no idea when Friendster launched Friendster blogs because i've been pretty far out of the loop, but Charlie noted them this morning. They are powered by Typepad and there's a free option available (with ads of course). They're all branded with Friendster's logo at the top and have the Friendster domain. To update your Friendster blog, you have to log in. Plus, all Friendster blogs have easy links to your Profile.

Check out my new Friendster blog.

Category: friendster

Posted by zephoria at 9:03 AM | Comments (12) | TrackBack (2)

December 5, 2004

Friendster's fictional personas

As we all know, social software is finding unique ways of selling advertising (and this recent article discusses some of it). In the YASNS world, MySpace has let you listen to R.E.M.'s upcoming album and Friendster has created fake profiles for companies and Hollywood, including celebrity profiles that sell brands through the celebrity. [I have to wonder if there are real people getting advertising money for branding themselves on Friendster.]

My first instinct is to roll my eyes and groan at the absurdity of this. My second is to laugh hysterically. Think about it. In a culture of continuous branding, corporations and Hollywood are actively moving to blur any understanding of "real." Everything is performed, articulated, mediated, constructed. Including and especially you. We want to brand people and use people to sell brands. We want to mesh the fictional with the personal so that you feel a deep connection with brands. Think about the psychology at play here. Sure, it's effective... damn effective... and fucking manipulative as holy hell. It makes me shudder to think that this is the culture that we've created. I totally get that people really buy into their brands and today's youth in particular are not only brand-savvy but they've personalized branding in the most effective way... for corporations.

It's kinda complicated. On one hand, i don't want to stop them from constructing their identity inside of brands because this lets them make meaning, but it's also quite disturbing. I mean, i glorify fan fiction which is all about identity construction through literary and media branded icons, but i am bothered by the product-driven equivalent. In fan fiction, i am stoked when youth figure out how to identify with fictional characters and develop a meaningful relationship to them, yet i hate having the equivalent in Friendster. Why? I don't honestly know. But it's definitely something to think about.

In any case, i would like to point out that people thought that postmodern ideas had no value outside the academy. If this collapsing of the "real" is anything other than postmodernism coming to fruition, please let me know.

Category: friendster

Posted by zephoria at 10:17 PM | Comments (1) | TrackBack (0)

October 12, 2004

Public Displays of Connection

Judith Donath and i wrote a paper for the BT Technology Journal called Public Displays of Connection that some may appreciate. It was just published today.

Abstract: Participants in social network sites create self-descriptive profiles that include their links to other members, creating a visible network of connections — the ostensible purpose of these sites is to use this network to make friends, dates, and business connections. In this paper we explore the social implications of the public display of one’s social network. Why do people display their social connections in everyday life, and why do they do so in these networking sites? What do people learn about another’s identity through the signal of network display? How does this display facilitate connections, and how does it change the costs and benefits of making and brokering such connections compared to traditional means? The paper includes several design recommendations for future networking sites.

Category: friendster

Posted by zephoria at 8:07 PM | Comments (12) | TrackBack (4)

August 31, 2004

Friendster engineer fired for blogging

Her blog. My favorite quote: "it's especially ironic because Friendster, of course, is a company that is all about getting people to reveal information about themselves..."

Ross' commentary.

Category: friendster

Posted by zephoria at 9:48 PM | Comments (1) | TrackBack (0)

July 9, 2004

commissioned Fakesters?

Andy reports that all of the Anchorman characters appear on Friendster as Fakesters while a banner ad for the movie runs in the advert section. Has Friendster stopped its ban on Fakesters so long as they're commissioned?

Update: Friendster really is supporting this. And they don't see the irony in it. "What Friendster is doing with these movie-character profiles is actually a brand-new paradigm in media promotion." Oh dear god.

Category: friendster

Posted by zephoria at 10:44 AM | Comments (17) | TrackBack (1)

June 25, 2004

Friendster is desperate; viral marketing failed

Friendster realizes that it has lost the attention of its earliest adopters. This morning, Friendster sent a message to a select number of people that they labeled as "SuperFriends." It's a usability survey where they are asking for users' advice on an email campaign. There are four different potential emails that they sent out as screen shots. Here's a sample one:

Subject: Friendster Now
So you're working. Who cares? You have a lifetime to work. What you'll really regret coughing and wheezing on your deathbed is not looking up all the old high-school friends, college buddies, summer camp alums, Burning Man acquaintances and ex'es who are just hoping you reach out and find them. And discovering new hiking partners, book groups and jam band fans. And setting up that person you really would date yourself if you were single. There's oh so much to do.

Seriously, you should go to Burning Man. It's pretty cool. The jam band stuff we understand if you're not into. We just needed an example there.

Thanks.

www.friendster.com

Oh, to make sure you keep getting these vaguely sarcastic emails, please add Friendster to your email address book now. If for no other reason than it will look cool to have Friendster in your address book.

The tone of these messages is desperate, begging for attention of the original early adopters - the ones that Abrams told me were ruining his system. One focuses on Burning Man types; one mocks the old Power Point COO; one charges non-users with harming children; one is a desperate love poem. They're hyper American-centric, SF-centric, white collar, wannabee hipster, intentionally attempting sarcasm (and clarifying that below) and complete with 80s references.

I guess Friendster isn't happy with the majority of its users being young and from Asia. Does this mean that Friendster has its tail between its legs about its early egotistical behavior? Apparently, viral marketing isn't working well enough anymore.

Anyhow, you *have* to read the full message that these SuperFriends got (included in the full message). It has had me ROFL for hours.

Continue reading "Friendster is desperate; viral marketing failed"

Category: friendster

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May 8, 2004

Friendster's plethora of high school students

Recently, i've been getting lots of SMS-style emails from people about Friendster. Usually, this means that they're teens. So, i went in and did a search in Friendster for ages 61-71 in California with pictures within 3 degrees. Almost 1000 hits. Doing the same search in Singapore, i found over 600 hits. All teens.

They're all underage (and it seems as though the most popular age to choose these days is 69). What surprises me is the emergence of Fakester High Schools (in order to collect all of those from the same HS). I'm stunned that Friendster was so vigilant in going after Fakesters because it was ruining search and they weren't viable customers, but they ignore the Fakesters that could open them up to hefty legal suits.

I also got a great report from Singapore that students are creating images of their HS teachers to write testimonials about how horrible they are. Looking at a few of them, interests include things like "Shouting at ppl, Confiscating balls especially soccer balls, Catch students who are late for school." Testimonials include things like "_|_ u sux! may ur dick not be wif u!"

A quick perusal of Friendster produced more Fakesters than i saw in the Fakester hayday. I find it utterly ironic - fakesters and teens everywhere and the early adopters are no longer participating. It seems as though their efforts to configure the users didn't work so well. (Of course, today's apathy is easy to explain... the Fakesters and teens aren't nearly as visible to the friends and FoF of those in the Valley as they were 9 months ago.)

Category: friendster

Posted by zephoria at 11:12 AM | Comments (10) | TrackBack (2)

May 5, 2004

Vizster: beautiful YASNS visualizations

For his visualization class final project, Jeff Heer created Vizster, a visualization tool for online social networks. The tool allows you to explore the network and color-code the data to make easy comparisons. It's built on top of Jeff's toolkit called Prefuse.

(PS: Vizster is not currently available for download and Jeff is on a well-deserved vacation so don't bug him until June. But definitely check out his other projects)

Category: friendster

Posted by zephoria at 9:53 PM | Comments (2) | TrackBack (3)

fake friends and SN etiquette

Too Many Fake Friends by Jim Louderback

The Ethics and Etiquette of Social Networks by Stowe Boyd

Category: friendster

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April 7, 2004

why Weinberger hates Friendster

Why Weinberger hates Friendster

Category: friendster

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March 29, 2004

the best Friendster advert ever

At the Microsoft Symposium, Ze Frank gave a video presentation.... it's the BEST Friendster advert ever. It's hysterical and if you're a reader of this blog, you will *love* it. Sarcastic, New York style... Glorious!

Category: friendster

Posted by zephoria at 3:43 PM | Comments (3) | TrackBack (5)

March 19, 2004

Abrams at SXSW: the MP3

I now have an MP3 of Abrams' talk at SXSW. (Thanks Tom Chi!!)

It was actually really really good to listen to it again. Since i was so frustrated by the first time, my expectations were really low this time (as opposed to my high hopes before). This meant that i listened and ignored all of the places where i disagreed with him and focused on the fun anecdotes. There are many fun anecdotes embedded into the talk and that was good to listen for. If i had time, i'd go through and challenge different parts of the talk. That said, most of my disagreements are philosophical. For example, i don't believe that the social awkwardness in Friendster is parallel to social awkwardness in everyday life. There are new issues and those must be addressed.

But anyhow, i wanted to pull out the section that really got my goat the other day.

"We're all sick of the social networking thing"
Ryze: "It was a business networking site..." When he thought of Friendster, it wasn't about dating. "I wanted to build a mainstream service. I thought... this isn't business networking... this is *social* networking. Friends, dating, anything to do with that kinda of stuff. So that's how i thought of the term social networking."

Other people thought of businessy things... "And now there's this whole kind of thing where people are talking about social networking. And they're referring to any service or site that has these similar concepts." Like Spoke.... "This is salesforce enterprise software deal - really quite different." "And now they're calling this a space."

So, the problems are two-fold. First is the visceral response that i got when Abrams so casually described how he found the term social networking in his creative efforts. He then goes on to assumed a shared understanding of the term he's adopted and is upset because everyone else is talking about social networks. He suggests that they are doing something very different to what Friendster is doing and that they should not be considered social networks.

When Spoke talks about social networks, they are actually using the term *far* more accurately to its definition than Friendster. People use their social networks to do business; social networks are about people and relationships, not simply networks that are used for social events. What makes Spoke far closer to the target is the fact that they are deriving behavior-based social networks instead of relying on people articulating them. Thus, they are actually representing social networks, not performance.

As i think about this, the reason that this got my goat was because it is a repurposing of a term that has lots of history and value because Abrams thought that he was the first to come up with it and capitalize on it. The most insulting part is that Abrams critiques sites using social networks to complete other tasks because they aren't doing exactly what he did. These sites are not simply social networks by self-definition only; those of us on the outside saw them as such too. Take Ryze. Ryze isn't business networking... it's social networking for a business context. This section makes Abrams come across as ignorant. And that's quite disappointing.

Category: friendster

Posted by zephoria at 11:47 AM | Comments (5) | TrackBack (1)

February 11, 2004

my etech talk: revenge of the user

I gave my talk at Etech on Revenge of the User today. In typical danah-mode, i spoke a mile-a-minute and, thus, folks kept asking me if i had more material. Thus, i thought that i'd offer the crib of my talk on my blog. I've included it in the extended entry. Please note that it was a crib for me and probably has a lot of holes and missing bits. Feel free to add what i skipped in the comments.

Continue reading "my etech talk: revenge of the user"

Category: friendster

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January 8, 2004

Friendster moving away from dating?

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...]

Category: friendster

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December 3, 2003

# of friends & popularity issues

Originally, Friendster listed who the most popular people were in your network. Quickly, Fakesters such as Burning Man and Ali G rose to the top and the community worked to push them there.

Due to the tribes component, Tribe.net has not had the dramatic number of "Fakesters." Recently, they implemented a new feature that, at first past, seems to imply the same popularity contest. They indicate under every user's post the number of Friends that s/he has.

A brilliant discussion by the users has emerged over this topic, revealing why this is not identical to the Friendster phenomenon.

Some Tribe users clearly note that they find it sketchy for a user to have either too many or too few friends. The former makes them look like they need to collect friends for some personal reason and the latter makes them look like they are too much of a lurker with no friends. Of course, the numbers are read in line with how long someone has been on the site and the reasons for which s/he is here.

It's also utterly fascinating because it's a conversation about users challenging how they are perceived, how they perceive, how they are configured, how they present their identity. It's all done without the moderation or guidance of anyone - emergent reflexivity. Yummy - that's the best.

Category: friendster

Posted by zephoria at 12:38 PM | Comments (2) | TrackBack (0)

November 28, 2003

nielsen data on Friendster

In their latest report on Friendster, Nielsen/Netratings reports that average theFriendster user (who logs in) spends nearly 2 hours per day on Friendster, but that they are not yet up at competitive levels with other dating services regarding number of unique viewers.

Anyhow, fascinating data. I truly wonder what Friendster looked like over time. Is the average user spending more time on Friendster than in June? Is the percentage of people who return changing? Are earlier users not loggging in as much? So many interesting data questions...

Category: friendster

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November 26, 2003

why i study Friendster

Many folks have asked me why i study Friendster. Others ask how i've gotten here. Some wonder where i'm going.

Well, the The NYTimes asked those questions and wrote a profile of me. ::blush::

Of course, it's not the full story, because it can't be (only so much danah babble can fit into a 1500-word or whatever story). But even in the slice that is covered, i can hear myself and my advisors.

(Oh, and for those who are interested in some of my anecdotes, the article also includes interviews from two people whose Friendster stories inspired me.)

Category: friendster

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babbling for the nytimes

The NYTimes did a profile of me. ::blush:: It's quite a riot because i can hear myself speaking and hear my advisors speaking. Plus, Michael interviewed two people who have some of my favorite Friendster stories and got them to tell their version of the story.

For those who don't want to read the story: it's basically a profile of me framed around my work with Friendster. Doing the interviews for this piece was fantastic! I got to tell the story of how i started studying technology, about my work with Andy/Judith/Peter (Genevieve/Henry...). I got to talk about why Friendster interested me (and why the business side is not my passion). Michael interviewed many of the people who have had an impact in what i'm doing (Andy, Peter, Genevieve) and those who are helping me think through the space now (Mark, Joi). To hear their reflections of their conversations with Michael is such a treasure.

::laugh:: I'm a giddy little girl right now.

Continue reading "babbling for the nytimes"

Category: friendster

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November 21, 2003

wired article on Friendster/Tribe

Today's Wired article discussing Friendster vs. Tribe is quite interesting.

The basic critique against Friendster is:
1) They lack a sense of humor
2) They treat people as individuals rather than parts of communities or groups
3) Service is slow; there is no consumer service
4) They use heavy-handed politics and their dictator tendencies are not winning them fans

Yet, compared to Tribe, it has succeeded because it is so dating-focused and because:

"I like Friendster because it is more people-oriented," she says. "Tribe is more geared towards selling used blenders and looking for a job. I don't need to be reminded how many jobless people there are, or what awful things people will do for a buck.... What I want is the fantasy that we are all rock stars, that everyone's ass looks great in leather, that everyone is sexy."

Anyhow, read the article!

Category: friendster

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November 4, 2003

Friendster guide to interpreting photos

OK, this is fun. Buttafly has created a Friendster Guide to Interpreting Photos.

That fun piece is in addition to an opinion piece on why one must join Friendster (to find out about how diverse your friends' friends are). Buttafly understandably misreads the Gallery to be one's collection of friends' friends, without realizing that the general population should be available there and that 4 degrees is meaningless. I was talking with someone yesterday about how Friendster has constructed a misreading of degrees by their decision to only present 4 degrees. They chose 4 mostly because of technical reasons, but 4 degrees has no value when you are looking at people. Yet, by noting it as "your network" and giving you a Gallery to look at your network, it's easy to think it means something. Unfortunately, my "network" consists of everyone from the neo-nazis to the gangstas to the midwestern teens, none of which are actually in my actual network of associates.

Category: friendster

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November 3, 2003

Confessions of a bad Friendster

"Confessions of a bad Friendster" is a hysterical article from the LATimes.

Let me just admit it. I have not been a very good Friendster. And this has let some people down. I'm sorry. Frankly, I was caught off guard by how serious everyone is about it.

Key points from this perspective:
1) Friendster is a time sync
2) a fashionable profile is essential to maintain good standing with your friends
3) creating a fashionable profile is a torturous process
4) photos are ESSENTIAL
5) reciprocity and awareness are key to testimonials
6) never ignore the bulletin board messages or you'll lose touch with friends
7) over time, you will identify with the question mark

Continue reading "Confessions of a bad Friendster"

Category: friendster

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October 30, 2003

privacy & friendster

The Wall Street Journal published an article today entitled "Having Lots of Online Friends Could Mean Privacy Trouble." The article articulates some of the institutional privacy concerns that some users do have and suggests that more users should have.

Now, i do believe in privacy concerns and i'm genuinely worried about institutional misuses of private data, but i'm not the average consumers. As we all know, consumers will happily sell their privacy. They don't understand the implications of this. And thus, there's no incentive for corporations to not try to collect it and make money off of it. This is where the government should step in. But since the government is controlled by corporations....

Anyhow, i won't follow that rant.

The big thing to realize is that most consumers are far more concerned with local privacy, or intimacy concerns. They're worried about their friends taking their information out of context, about their mom seeing something intended for their friends, of a future boss seeing a drunken picture. Consumers are far more concerned with those who have limited local authority over them than institutional authority. [Yes, here's an opportunity for a study...]

Continue reading "privacy & friendster"

Category: friendster

Posted by zephoria at 7:37 PM | TrackBack (0)

a 2nd WSJ article

Powerful Connections is another Wall Street Journal article on Friendster. This one focuses on the attraction of venture capital.

Venture Blog has a great little rant on these articles (and other good links and business comments)

Continue reading "a 2nd WSJ article"

Category: friendster

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October 29, 2003

is Friendster a dud?

OK, this is the *best* biline ever:

"Friendster's inspiration -- online matchmaking via friends of friends -- has been a runaway success. Human nature may be the only bug."

So, i admit... i like this article. Finally, someone in the press is teasing apart the fundamental structural problems of Friendster (not just the Fakester problem or the Jonathan Abrams sucks problem or being all positive). In particular, they take aim at two of my favorite issues:

1) The assumption that your friends are transitive links for dating. [There is no doubt that people are often more compatible with people that are friends of friends. But the inverse logic is not always true. Just because they are a friend of a friend doesn't mean you have any interest in dating them.] They bring up the issues with friends being counterproductive because they don't always know what's best... i.e. your friends shouldn't try to help by setting up dates - this is always a disaster (this is age old wisdom that seems to have been forgotten in Friendster).

2) Friendster assumes equality. A friend is a friend is a friend, right? Ha! Particularly when there's an issue of "public face."

Is this a sign of more negative press to come? Is the honeymoon with Friendster over? (It certainly is for many of the users i've been tracking...)

Continue reading "is Friendster a dud?"

Category: friendster

Posted by zephoria at 11:13 AM | Comments (3) | TrackBack (2)

October 21, 2003

Friendster & intimacy

Hmm... It dawned on me that i never posted Reflections on Friendster, Trust and Intimacy. This was the workshop paper that i wrote in order to attend and participate in the Intimate (Ubiquitous) Computing workshop at Ubicomp.

The paper is not extensive, but it consolidates some of the ideas that i've been processing on this blog and might be useful for folks wanting the highlights.

Category: friendster

Posted by zephoria at 11:52 PM | TrackBack (0)

Friendster slut

Friendster Slut is a rather entertaining blog chronicling one guy's relationship with Friendster.

Category: friendster

Posted by zephoria at 9:11 PM | Comments (1) | TrackBack (1)

October 10, 2003

friendster in the metro

I've gotten used to reading my quotes out of context (or otherwise made-up), but i was a bit dismayed at reading my blog quotes taken out of context and then theoretically responded to in a way that appears utterly ficticious.

In the Metro, parts of my blog are quoted concerning the longevity of Friendster. In those quotes, i was addressing my suspicion that Friendster draws people in because of their curiousity, but that it cannot sustain participation that way. Because the majority of users are not looking for a date, dating cannot be the long term model for Friendster. If they don't switch that perspective, they won't survive. Of course, that also implies that if they do switch focus, they will answer my concerns. Jonathan's supposed counter does not contradict anything that i say or believe, even though it's constructed that way. In fact, i'm glad to hear that he's publicly considering other uses of the network than dating (as had been his public mantra for so long). And i *know* that users come and stay on for many months, but not infinitely; they do lose interest unless there's another spark of curiousity, excitement, energy.

What i find the most disturbing is this quote by Jonathan: "Whoever this [danah boyd] person is, she has no access to our data. But everyone has their theories about stuff, I guess."

There is no doubt that i have no access to Friendster's data; i've never claimed otherwise. I simply have access to hundreds of surveys and other interactions with users. And i simply have access to the profiles of about 1M subscribers. But regardless, there's no way that i believe that Jonathan feigned ignorance of my existence. Thus, i have to call into question the whole interview and specifically that segment of the article. I certainly wasn't interviewed, only quotes from my blog. What was Jonathan really asked?

Very weird.

Category: friendster

Posted by zephoria at 10:53 PM | Comments (3) | TrackBack (0)