Well, i finally hit it. A colleague of mine added me as a Friendster and i went to approve him, but i received a nice little message telling me that i have too many friends. Apparently, 200 is the cap (although i have 215). Of course, i can only assume that Jonathan is intending to block Fakester behavior through this cap, but i find it hysterical that in doing so, he’s actually blocking me, particularly since i’ve been so vigilent about only linking to people that i actually know (well, except for “Brown” who has done me well by letting me find old friends.).

As someone who has been on the darn site for ages and is constantly in communication with folks about it, it shouldn’t be surprising that i know more than 200 people on the system. I have all sorts of colleagues on there (law professors, gender theorists, social software folks, software engineers, etc.). Friends from all aspects of my life are there now. Basically, my account is a funny hodgepodge of a diverse population.

I remember a few months back when one of my friends was asked if i was a Fakester because i seemed to be such a ridiculous hub. ROFL. Perhaps by being too real, i’ve moved into the realm of absurd and thus fake?

Friendster: A little cash goes a long way? is a CNet article on Friendster as a company. It also addresses Friendster’s catty attitude towards patents (although it doesn’t address the wide variety of prior art).

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In addressing the upcoming Fakester Revolution protest, Clay provides too very good points:

1) The real person behind a Fakester is never as much fun as the character. “Did these people never see the Wizard of Oz? Never let them see behind the curtain — the creator is much duller than the creation.”

2) At this point, Friendster will gain nothing by reverting its policy on Fakesters. The buzz kill has already happened.

I would love to disagree with Clay on the latter point, but i think he’s dead-on. At the same time, i think that there are fundamental lessons for social software creators embedded in this battle. Fundamentally, a successful digital space for social interaction must allow a diverse set of uses and personalities.

By creating a rigid “public” environment and controlling the types of social activity that go on, you inherently limit your audience and weaken your product. Just as in RL, there is value in having a “public” environment where a vastly diverse population can just live and let live. Diversity makes the world go round.

Secondly, play is really important. With play comes humor and creativity. This is the glue the helps connect people, the motivation for doing serious activities. Life is like a treasure hunt – it’s about finding those more subtle awe-inspiring moments. Connecting with people is not a dry mechanical task and to turn it into one will inevitably demotivate people.

One year from now, i suspect that the current incarnation of Friendster will have faded from people’s memories, a fad that was fun to play with and to find people. For the next evolution of said software, it’s going to be essential for designers to figure out how to provide an environment where people have freedom, while simultaneously empowering people to ignore segments of the population. In effect, they need to figure out how to model the variety of a good city. Social software must learn from social environments, not try to artificially construct them.

[Ever since Many-to-Many killed comments, i feel compelled to respond to posts there here… Yet, it feels like an odd form of disconnected dialogue.]

I realized that i never wrote down the different types of Fakesters/Fraudsters that i’ve been observing. Here are a few that i can think of right now. [Let me know if there are other ones that you’ve seen.]

Play Characters.. These characters are meant for fun and entertainment, and to allow people with common interests to connect.

• Famous character or person. examples: Homer Simpson, Stanley Milgram, Drew Barrymore
• Place (university, city, bar, etc.). examples: Brown University, New Jersey, Lexington
• Objects, animals, creatures, mythical figures. examples: Salt, Giant Squid, LSD
• Identity markers. examples: Black Lesbians, FemSex
• Concepts. examples: Fear, Pure Evil, Infinity
• Tribes (real life communities). examples: Infinite Kaos, Space Cowboys

Passable Characters. These characters are meant to appear real on the system.

• Unwilling friends. i.e. my friend Andy refuses to create an Friendster account so i’ll create one for him, use a picture of him that i have, and link to all of his friends
• Friend supporters. i.e. a group of guys create a girl to give them good testimonials and introduce them to other girls.
• Bait. i.e. a passable character, often female, meant to see if “she” can pick up tons of other characters in the system by flirting.
• Clones/Spite-based Fraudsters. i.e. Jonathan Abrams needs to learn a lesson so i’ll create an image of him or his friends and try to communicate with various friends of his to toy with the system.

Note: Cloning is pretty common now. “Fake” characters as well as “real” characters are often cloned. There are tons of Jedis, Jesus Christs and Jonathan Abrams.

There are also Collectors – people who collect one type of fake character.

There are also Friendster whores – people who simply collect as many people as possible, including Fakesters.

[Revised on 9/13 based on lots of good feedback.]

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