rands [15 March 2003] – commentary from various technical users, contemplating what can be done with Friendster data and whether or not there is a purpose to returning

“‘friendster has already came and went with my crowd.’

I find this comment interesting because I think it’s a flaw in the friendster model… there’s no reason for me to go back when I’ve got all my friends linked. Sure, I can wander the friend tree, but they don’t make it easy… ”

tourist sans camera [26 June 2003] – “Friendster Introduced Me To My Own Friends”

“Here’s where the Internet transcends reality: it’s like each of your friends through a party, and you got to meet and talk to each person there, and were subsequently invited to each of their parties.”

Most are aware that i’ve been watching Friendster’s evolution with a keen interest, asking questions and reflecting. An academic analysis of what’s going on is by no means ready (although it’s definitely brewing). All the same, i realized that i should start consolidating the material that i’ve been reading, start throwing out a few ideas and give myself a public play space for reflecting on what’s floating in my head and showing up in conversations .

Thus, introducing:

jill walker [28 April 2003] – a great academic discussion about Friendster

Friendster’s “killer ap” is “The swelling joy that fills my heart every time I look at the pictures of these, my good friends. (Awwwwwww…)”. – Adam Greenfield

“Ah, Friendster testimonials are clearly an artform in themselves. I misunderstood the genre at first, and wrote sensible ones – there’s obviously no need for this, as you’ll see if you find one of those pages with dozens of one-liners from various friends.”

Dave Weinberger [15 April 2003]

“First, to jump into Friendster, I have to make explicit a social network that at its heart and at its best is implicit. There’s an online social network lying unearthed in my inbox and outbox. Why do I have to reassemble it, person by person, for Friendster? And if Friendster doesn’t work out, do I do it again for the next attempt? That would be a pain in the ass.”

“Then Friendster asks me to describe myself. Gender, age, occupation all are no problem. But then there are my interests, my favorite music, favorite TV shows and “about me.” I don’t actually have an internal list of favorite music so I can’t simply make explicit what was implicit all along. I’d have to fabricate a list and do so pretty much without context.”

“”Making explicit” rarely means simply unearthing what’s lying there unearthed. It means creating something new. That’s why the best service technicians aren’t necessarily the best teachers: there’s no such thing as humans doing a “data dump.””

“Lets not confuse one’s public face – from your own internal representational systems and thoughts. No one ever bent your arm to join, but when you did you inherently accept the rules of that “world”. They’re into flirting there and they’re just trying to coax you into playing along.” – Marc Canter

Michael Connor O’Clarke [12 April 2003] – “How to Lose Friendsters and Influence People”

“The whole thing was starting to genuinely creep me out. Positioned as “a social and business networking service”, I think Friendster is quickly revealing itself as less a viable business networking thing; more of a meeting ground for desperate horndogs, hose beasts, and wannabe swingers too clueless to realise there are already thousands of real swinger sites online.”

“Point is: I think I’m getting all the Friend mojo I want through just being online, thanks very much – don’t need no aspartame-flavoured Friendster sweetness to help me along here. Friendster aims to solve a problem I just don’t have.”

gothamist [2 July 2003] – asks what are the Friendster protocols and social norms?

Phil Gyford [23 December 2002] – Friendster vs. FOAF

Jeremy Zawodny [8 May 2003] – Linked In vs. Friendster

Matthew Linderman [18 June 2003]

“The cult certainly seems to be growing in my neck of the woods. I didn’t even know what it was until a couple of weeks ago and now I hear it mentioned often. Interestingly, it’s usually by non-techies that I would never expect to use such a service.”

jenn doppleganger [8 March 2003] – motivation behind meeting someone from Friendster (and comments include people who want to collapse the network)

estree [19 May 2003] – play with the system as a way to waste time at work or get a good laugh; uncertainty about receiving messages from people, but excitement at finding good looking boys

ben hammersley [18 December 2002] – “like Ebola, but nice.”

“Memes are great: sometimes they slap you on the back of the head, and the other times they simmer gently until the room is full of steam. One of the latter appears to be Friendster to which I was alerted to yesterday by a joining invite from Matt Jones. Now signed up, I get two more invites in quick succession. Viral? the damn thing’s an epidemic.”

azeem.azhar.co.uk [18 December 2002]

Azeem compares Friendster with its predecessor, Six Degrees. Six Degrees collapsed under its own wait; Azeem notes how fast and cute Friendster is (note date).

“The value of Friendster is that it has got us excited again. It isn’t the killer application for the social network. But it is another attempt to find that application.”

“It toys with serendipity. It has some exploratory tools. But it is still a centralised system. It still imposes a cost to create a presence and maintain that presence. And it has yet to prove–althought it may yet prove–functionality and utility over the long-run.”

After someone noted that he added the author in his comments, he responded with: “But i don’t know who you are!! since friendster is for dating, i want to make sure i can really vet everyone on my list…. i wouldn’t want my friends being stalked…. okay. okay. i’ll add you!”

iwire [17 December 2002]

“Very useful for the forgetful; but what exactly is the point? All of this either duplicates functionality already available by (a) knowing who your friends are and what they look like or (b) using e-mail and other more basic ways of keeping in touch. At the margin (and if the network is big enough) it might be useful for getting introductions to people other people know, but even that is questionable.”

“All of those capital letters and all that FUN do hide a decent point point, namely that there are occasional costs and barriers involved in friends introducing their friends to other friends. But that doesn’t mean that an all encompassing friends web-site is the best way to overcome them. Instead, it reflects the fact that most people have different groups of friends because their friends don’t have much in common anyway.”

“So, a muse for the day: social networking tools tend to be used by people who like social networking tools to show off to other people who are interested in social networking tools. Basically, its network bragging.”

blackbeltjones [17 December 2002]

“has accounted for a major dip in productivity in our office. Unlike previous social network building apps like sixdegrees or ryse there is something about it which is incredibly compelling.

Is it:

The ease of use of the well-considered IA and user-interface?

The photos?

The “privacy of the mall” feeling of a private public place that you feel confidence in?

The fact it’s not dressed up in “personal-productivity” speak and is just obviouslly about reinforcing and discovering social ties, and, ahem… dating?”

An odd collection of blog entries about Friendster (in the process of collecting various notes)

Technovia [2 Jan 2003] – thoughts on the media-centric view of Friendster interests (with lots of good commentary by others)

K-Collector’s RSS feed on Friendster [10 June – 3 July 2003] – Marc Canter/Ross Mayfield’s comments

{ Fire & Ice } [6 June 2003] – self-criticism for posting about Friendster, comments on parodies, articles and FOAF

non-literal [30 May 2003] – discusses what groups of people he sent Friendster invites to, desired shared interest site and references his longer rant about the amount of effort necessary to make these valuable