In order to make certain that i capture as much information as possible through this blog, i’ve welcomed Jen King to share this space with me. Thus, she may pop up occasionally as an additional voice here. Jen is a really smart character who is also fascinated by how people construct and maintain “community.”
I’ve been talking to more and more press lately and one question always comes up “Does Friendster work?” Of course, this is more complicated than any of them want to hear in byte size form. Thus, i’ve never seen any of them reflect my answer. More often than not, what they really want to know is whether or not people use Friendster to date.
The answer is: Of course! The interesting part is how. There are a variety of different usage scenarios.
– People will see someone through their friend’s list and ask the friend about them and encourage their friend to introduce them in RL. Or at least they will ask for their common friend’s opinion before introducing themselves.
– People will recognize familiar strangers and thus have multiple contexts in which to begin a dialogue, online of offline.
– People use it as though it’s Match.com and reach out to effectively strangers with another data point for conversation.
The most interesting usage scenario follows the familiar strangers element. These are people that are recognizable by sight. The viewer sorta knows them (perhaps they are part of the same scene), but has never had a reason to converse. Not only does Friendster provide useful information about a potential date (single status, sexuality, age, etc.), but it provides an additional context in which to start a conversation.
If you see a person in the pub every week, starting a conversation might be challenging. But if you see them on Friendster, you can write to them saying “oh, i see you’re Bob’s friend and i know i recognize you from XXX pub.” Or, conversely, you can go up to them in the pub and say “you’re Bob’s Friendster, right?”
I love this model because it integrates two of Stanley Milgram’s most powerful concepts.
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[Yes, this is a joke. The problem is that it’s actually believable.]
When one presents oneself in a public space, one is constantly trying to negotiate their presentation of self to give off the intended perception. Based on the reaction one gets, one changes this presentation.
Lately, i’ve been doing enough press interviews or other discussions such that people have been writing up quotes by me or otherwise processing and projecting my ideas. Sometimes, i read a quote by me and i recognize it; other times, i recognize a word or two, but feel completely misrepresented. Overall though, it’s so peculiar to see myself in someone else’s article, to see how someone else digested and processed my presentation of ideas. I find myself reading my own quotes and arguing against them, disagreeing with different points. It makes me wonder how much of what i say is really heard. It also makes me wonder how other people must perceive me based on supposed quotes by me. And finally, it makes me wonder what model of danah is formed when people read my blog, which is at best a haphazard collection of links of importance to me and other arbitrary thoughts.
In any case, i’m quite humored to be able to critique myself.
[from the connected selves blog]
Wired ran an article today about Making Friendsters in High Places, including quotes by moi (and referencing the eBay phenomenon and Ross’ comparison of different tools).
I must say that i think it’s fascinating to hear people reference each other as Friendsters. “Oh, you’re danah’s Friendster.” This shows how it is not really a listing of your friends, but some other not-entirely-defined set of people that you sorta know in some context or another.
Time Out New York: “Online social network Friendster.com just may be the most annoyingly cliquey and trendy club since Moomba” (with quotes by moi)
My friends know me. My colleagues know me. And V-Day organizers know how to panic. I received well over a dozen pointers to this article about Hunting for Bambi, a game where men pay large amounts of money to hunt and shoot naked women with paintguns. The site hilights its shocking blend of sex and violence.
[To read some interesting commentary, check out Jen King’s blog entry on the topic.]
Six Degrees of Procrastination: Why is everyone you know on Friendster?
By Douglas Wolk (Slate @ MSN)
I’ve been blogging in some form or another since 1997. Early renditions of my blog were explicitly personal and shut away via .htaccess files for my friends to read. This rendition has been explicitly public and thus the content has a very different tone. For the most part, i only publish that which i think would still be socially acceptable 20 years from now. I rarely publish my opinions or my thoughts beyond the highest meta data. There are many instances when information is presented in a way that those who know me know how to read between the lines and know what actually happened. But even that is rare.
I don’t even mention friends’ names, unless i’m discussing their professional work. One place where this bothers me is in my listing of links. The list of blogs i read is much longer than what is listed on the sidebar. That list is comprised of the blogs that i read which are really meant for the public at large, instead of just for friends. Although many of my friends’ LJs or diaries or blogs are very public, i just don’t feel right linking to them off of my site. It’s a weird negotiation of what’s appropriate.
Of course, what humors me the most is that those growing up blogging and journaling will take this all for granted and think it to be natural, rather than my panicked uncertainty of what’s appropriate. How strange.
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.”