Friendster

[the_siobhan]

I just got an invitation to join friendster.

So can anybody explain what that is to me? Pros and cons?

(I'm not sure I really need to get myself addicted to another time-suck...)

Comments

[dethinwntr.livejournal.com]

I don't really get it, I just just log in, add whoever requested to be added and check like, the one or two msgs that are new, and log back out :)

[eilis40.livejournal.com]

Ditto on that. I've also found that I get messages from random guys who think this is match.com. :P

[ex-electroly478.livejournal.com]

i started a friendster account because a friend of mine wanted me to check out some creepy guy on there that was weirding her out. i have tons of people finding me on there without me telling anyone about it, it's kind of creepy.

reminds me of LJ in some respects, feels like a big social experiment, though i haven't encountered any drama on there.

[lbabybrie.livejournal.com]

Friendster is a friends sharing network. You can use it to find friends or to meet up with that special someone.. you can also use it to pimp your friends out. It's fun and free, so why not?

[erik]

What you get out of it depends on what you put into it, and what others put into it.
There are over 20k people within 5 hops of me. Because some people seem to think that the point is to befriend as many people as possible. So the search function is a little useless, because it was not designed for that many hits; it's not fine-grained enough. Not enough selection criteria; in particular I'd like to be able to prune my connection tree to get rid of FOAF who have 300 friends.

And I've gotten offended responses when I wouldn't befriend someone I've only met like twice and don't know anythig about. How can I match them up if I don't know them?

[xiphias.livejournal.com]

The concept of Friendster, as I understand it is . . .

Well, if you were a Victorian or Edwardian gentlebeing, and you wanted to meet someone in order to have an affair, or a partner for tennis, or someone to help you in your philanthropic work, (but NOT for a business connection -- Victorian and Edwardian gentlebeings don't work) you wouldn't just go up and start talking to them. You'd need an introduction. So, you'd need to figure out who you knew who knew that person, and get them to introduce you.

If you didn't know anyone who knew someone who knew the person, you'd need to know someone who knew someone who knew that person, and get an introduction from them to the other person, and from the other person to the person you knew.

And so forth.

Obviously, the two difficulties with this system are 1) figuring out whether someone who you don't know is worth going through the trouble of all this to get to know, and 2) building the friend chain.

Friendster automates those processes.

[david365.livejournal.com]

It's a waste of space and time.

Not worth the energy or effort - I keep deleting the invites I get.

:)

[elixxir.livejournal.com]

I joined at the invitation of a friend, but I haven't found it useful for much except getting offensive and bizzare messages from strangers a couple of times a month. Mind you, I put zero time and effort into using it for actually trying to meet people, so I'm probably getting out of it exactly what my effort deserves. :p

[theonetrinity.livejournal.com]

so far, it kinda bites.
just another popularity contest.

[shadowriderhope.livejournal.com]

I dunno, I find it actually kind of interesting, a way to get to know friends of friends better, see how the network builds. I agree that they've way outgrown whatever their current system is; it was basically an experiment.

I don't think it needs to be a big time suck, but if you're not interested, just delete the invite. ;)

- Hope

[the-siobhan.livejournal.com]

Mostly I'm just worried that it will do to me what newsgroups and LiveJournal have. :-)

Friendster Beta

[mr-sharkey.livejournal.com]

Ah, the dot-com business model:

1. Get people to join
2. ?????
3. Profit!


M.