My roommate just posted about group hug, a fantastic site full of confessions. An example:
I worked for two years at a Walgreens, I would chase down shoplifters and make sure they realized shoplifting was bad.
I stole my lunch from the candy and frozen foods section every day. probably $12 worth.
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.
I love my friends. And i love the fact that they enjoy standing up to authority to challenge their power. This week, Joe Hall decided to mirror the Diebold code to express his outrage of the abuse of copyright. And he got a cease and desist. And now he’s in the NYTimes expressing his disagreement. Go Joe!
“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
I’ve received a few dozen requests for contact information via Plaxo now. In theory, this sounds brilliant. Having just lost my cell phone and corrupted my addressbook, i’ve been begging folks to write to me with their phone, address, and birthday (*hint*hint*).
But something is amiss. Out of all of these requests, i’ve only *recognized* the names of 3 people who requested my information (including the one today). I get these blank requests from people asking for my contact information. No explanation. Perhaps we know each other via research or blogs, but there is no note or qualifier. It’s really odd. Besides, many of them are using email addresses that are either dead or from my website (not the ones that i normally use to write to people).
I’ve decided that i’m not going to put my data in Plaxo for anyone, whether i know them or not. I just don’t really feel comfortable with the fact that so many of the people who ask me for Plaxo contact information are completely foreign to me. Am i being weird?
Fernanda Viegas and i wrote an amazing paper for the HICSS conference called Digital Artifacts for Remembering and Storytelling: PostHistory and Social Network Fragments. It’s the first publication that i’m really proud of, as it starts to tease out some of the theoretical issues that our work was grappling with. And, in writing it, i learned sooo much. Sadly, it seems as though i won’t get to present the paper.
When we wrote it, we were under the impression that we would be funded to attend the conference. I had one conference coming to me and Fernanda did too. Well, it seems as though promises are easily broken… things change, or so i’m (not even directly) told. Of course, i kept my end of the bargain, which i now feel foolish for doing. It’s amazing how easy it is to remain bitter about a situation that should’ve been so good and so blatantly wasn’t.
By and large, i’m not that interested in the business side of Friendster, except for the speculation, gossip, and critique that emerges as a result. I’ve never had the opportunity to be so closely tied to the business endeavors of a technology, to see the scramblings and hype that emerge. I do admit that it’s utterly fascinating to watch it from a psychological and sociological standpoint. And i’m also continuing to be super appreciative of those who are motivated to track the business side of it all.
Out of the business news today, i’d like to make a pointer to: sippey’s comparison of Friendster to eBay
Ani DiFranco page to include the track list for Ani’s new album, “Educated Guess.” Some folks were wondering how i heard about it already. I don’t actually have some special in, but folks are often kind enough to keep me abreast of updates since i make that material available to so many. A kind fan sent me the track list came from Rolling Stone.
To all the fans who are so kind to keep me updated, *thank you* (especially Vaughn).
Scott Rosenberg reminds us that social software is just a repeat and those who can’t remember the past…
He virtually scratches his head over the venture money pouring into Friendster and other social software and reminds us that there should only be two groups that are in love with this movement: technologists and anthropologists.
This made me smile. Of *course* i love this domain right now. Effectively, i’m a pseudo-technologist and a pseudo-anthropologist so together that makes a whole fascination, right?
Safeway. I’m buying salad materials with a friend to make dinner. He’s off in another aisle. A woman stops me, tells me she likes my hair. I blush and respond with a mumble of thank you. She asks me if i work in Oakland. I respond no, i don’t live in the East Bay; i live in the city.. i’m just visiting a friend. She expresses disappointment and says that she’s looking for a job and when she finds individual looking people, she asks where the work, in the hopes that she can find a good place. I say that i’m sorry, still too dorky and caught off-guard to actually communicate meaningfully. She says that she used to live in SF for a year and NY before that. I say that i just moved here from out east and spent a chunk of my last year in NYC. She noted that she actually lived in Buffalo, worked for Righteous Babe. I told her that i ran a website for many years of Ani’s lyrics. I told her that i worked for V-Day. She told me that she was in New College’s production of V-Day. I told her that i saw that production. I introduced myself, she did in return. And then something clicked in her head. She recalled my website, knew that i was into girls, knew a few other things and then reported that her friend was in love with me. The blushing, dorkiness and mumbling returned. And i nervously said goodbye and shuffled off with my friend, too uncertain of the appropriate response to that interaction.
::sigh:: As i grow older, i get less capable of dealing with situations that catch me off guard with any level of grace. My complete dorkiness emerges.