Clay Shirky notes that Six Degrees is no longer 404 and ponders what this might mean. It certainly would be interesting to see them rise from the dead.

In Friendster Sucks, pt1 — Community Sharing, rmger argues for why he detests Friendster community collision, noting that failure to control what information spreads doesn’t only disempower the bridge individual, but it puts the different groups at risk simply because they have trust assumptions about the bridge’s relationship to other groups.

GeekBox has two interesting blog entries on social networks this week:

Attack of the Clones clearly articulates why Jonathan is making a poor decision in killing fake characters. To summarize his stance, “I wasn’t a big fan of the fakesters on Friendster, but seeing this really corporate, dull clamp-down on what Friendster’s users are doing, I find myself rooting for the fakesters.” The entry continues on to discuss how other communities are formed and managed, referencing Slashdot’s reputation system and Craigslist’s notorious community of trust.

Tribe.net Strikes Back is posted as a follow-up, commending Tribe for learning from the mistakes that Friendster is making and otherwise “getting it”

From Marc Canter’s blog…

Alec Matusis has been spidering his Friendster accounts and has come up with a nice table of the Top 40 Friendster hubs. Watch their accounts be turned off – as Jonathan Abrams et al – do their thang.

I really like Jay Fienberg’s reflections based on various posts of mine. Drawing from his arguments:

1) gaming is half of the draw of these sites (and thus failing to properly support and acknowlege this put the creator at a disadvantage);

2) expecting real identity without social or political regulation and meaningful consequences for failing to conform is naive;

3) rule enforcement without meaningful consequences encourages anti-establishment activities that undermine attempts at rule enforcement.

Tribe.net is currently in early beta, yet it has already appeared on a wide variety of blogs. [Tribe.net is YASNS focus on 1) Recommendations and listings (housemates, for sale, etc.) and 2) Letting people connect with their groups of friends.]

Marc Canter [29 July 2003] – reflections by Marc on Tribe and the lessons that are being learned; references to other’s experiences

Jason Lefkowit [28 July 2003] – Jason is frustrated with the YASNS phenomenon, particularly because of its requirement to harangue one’s friends. His friend points out that it would be far more useful if those with power and influence were a part of the system.

Michael Radwin [4 August 2003] – puts the YASNS phenomenon in historical context and hints at why he’s hesistent to use these systems. [Sidenote: Michael was one of my TAs at Brown! How cool to run into someone this way.]

Pedro Alocer [8 August 2003] – without the sex, what’s the point?

Where’s the Smoke? [5 August 2003] – the author asks what the difference is between Tribe.net and Friendster and his readers comment back that it is both the focus on Tribes and the blending of Friendster meets Craigslist

William Blaze [28 July] – William notes that Tribe’s look and feel doesn’t work for him, but also likes that Tribe seems open to changes

Liz Lawley [6 August 2003] – Fake characters appear early on Tribe.net. Liz is asked if she’s a friend of Jesus.

Popdex – a list of links to blogs that are talking about Tribe.net

Mapping and honing our interconnections is an APWire/USAToday article about Spoke and Visible Path. These companies are using mined email data to construct organization’s social networks (similar to Social Network Fragments).

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Forbes just published an interesting piece about online culture in South Korea, arguably the most wired society in the world, where access to broadband is unprecedented and even your parents know what avatars are. If this is what our high-speed future looks like in the U.S., we should be thankful the bottom fell out of the telecom industry.

“When the Slammer virus shut down Internet service for several hours in Korea in January, the whole country suffered from withdrawal symptoms, says Ken Lee, chairman of Korea Telecom, the nation’s biggest broadband provider. Some 10% of the general population and 40% of 13- to 18-year-olds are addicted to the Net, says Dr. Kim Hyun Soo, 37, head of Korea’s professional society for psychologists specialized in treating Internet addiction. “I have seen kids who have not left the house for two years,” he says. ”

Acute lack of irony: the kid in the article who is punished for stealing money from his parents to accessorize his avatar can’t surf the net past midnight and is forced to spend time with his family . . . watching TV.

Is Identity About Ownership or Assertion? is an article by Eric Norlin as part of the DigitalIDWorld conference. Summary: “The Digital Identity ecosystem is a large one. One of the corners of that ecosystem is the “social software” movement. Many of the individuals and companies involved in social software talk about identity in terms of ownership. In this article, Eric examines whether the power of identity lies in ownership or assertion…”

My problem with this article is that Eric doesn’t ground what he’s referring to when he talks about idenitity. From my definition of “idenity” there’s no question about who owns identity. Identity can only be owned by the individual, because it is far more than simply the validity that someone exists. The problem is that most people think of identity as what facets people present, what data people produce, and what bits can provide authentication. The thing is that identity can’t be copied and stored, but the pointers to and output of one’s identity can be.

Also, when it comes to the power of assertion regarding one’s identity, everyone must read Judith Donath’s “Identity and Deception in the Virtual Community.”

The Unspoken of Groups is a recapitulation of David Weinberger’s ETech talk. In it, Weinberger talks about the problems with articulating one’s identity in sites like Friendster as well as contemplating the power of groups in digital social interaction.