Anne Galloway [5 May 2003] – After receiving multiple pings from friends, Anne joined Friendster. She reveals her distaste for the competition that people have going concerning how many Friendsters they have. She also references the distinction between a Friendster friend and a real friend. Comments reference the problem that not all of one’s friends are on the Internet.

“Isn’t the purpose of Friendster to turn acquaintances into closer friends?” – Abe

Adam Greenfield [7 May 2003] – Adam hesitatated and then waited for critical mass to join; his hesitation stems to its purpose as a dating site.

“I firmly believe that one of these sites, duly modified, or a scratch-built successor or successors, will catalyze huge changes in the way we socialize, connect, associate and construct our lives. Huge. This is completely uncontroversial to me. What remains to be seen is if anyone can pull it off with flair and an appropriate amount of personality.”

Adam Greenfield [9 May 2003] – Following up on his earlier article, Adam reflects on the implications of these sites in relation to the theory on the topic. He also discusses how and why we compartmentalize our social networks and why we don’t necessarily want all of our friends connected to all of our other friends.

“One thing I keep coming back to is the artificial and unintentionally dishonest partiality of these attempts to graft the possibilities of digital networks onto the patterns of human ones.”

“Something tells me these services won’t reach their maximum potential until they can incorporate our less salutary feelings about association: the latent but powerful distinctions we make, the dislikes and fears we, however subtly, import into our presentation of self. These are precisely the shadows we may have “gone online” to escape in the first place, but they are a part of what we’ve always meant by “social,” they serve a function evolved over a very long span of time, and I believe we ignore them at some disservice to our ambitions.”