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.”

Jonathan Van Gieson has a list of Friendster Power Games that is just wonderful:

Top Friendster Power Games:

The Pre-Rejection
You just signed up for Friendster, and you notice that I’ve been using it for a month, and didn’t invite you. Perhaps we’re just not as close as you thought we were.

The Delayed Approval
You can see by my profile that I was active yesterday. You sent me a “new friend request” three days ago. I haven’t approved it. Maybe it’s because I’m waiting to see if anyone worthwhile signs up to be your friend before I commit to having you on my friends list.

The Unreciprocated Testimonial
You wrote me a very nice testimonial three weeks ago, yet your page still displays the pathetic notice: “No testimonials yet. You can add the first!” Gosh, it looks like you’re more interested in me than I am in you, doesn’t it?

The Mexican Standoff
You’re one of John Smith’s friends. I’m one of John Smith’s friends. We know each other, we can clearly see each other in the “John Smith’s Friends” page, and yet neither of us has attempted to add the other as a friend. It’s a battle for status, and the first person to send the new friend request will forever be the loser.

[from the Collapsed Selves blog]

As if anyone needed any more proof that Friendster networks do not actually represent one’s social network, two people this morning decided to sell their Friendster network on eBay:

Friendster Network Coolest Guy Association

Elite Friendster – meet Hipsters, Musicians!

Cultural familiarity with Friendster has reached the point where horoscope writers are using it as commonly understood language. From the Seattle Weekly:

Libra (Sept. 23-Oct. 22)
Whether you sign on to Friendster or just lay it out on a piece of paper, I want you to list all the people you know this week, and the people they know (that you know about). It’s important that you see how you affect the world, without even trying-just by being. Everything you do is rippled out through your friends, to their friends, to their friends, and so on. Get my drift yet, Libra? I’m doing my best to counteract your absolutely false self-denigration. All I’m trying to say, really, is there’s no way you could not matter, no matter how hard you tried. You’ve already irrevocably changed our world-almost entirely for the better. We, the friends of your friends’ friends, thank you. Now thank yourself.

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?”