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I stayed away from social networking sites like Orkut and Friendster for a long time. I think the reason why is because I hate describing myself on a form. Really. And with Friendster in particular, I felt like one of its primary raison d'etres was to facilitate dating. Being happily married, that didn't appeal to me.
When I got an invite to Orkut, I was intrigued enough to join. What's different about Orkut is its broader reach. There's still the stupid forms, but in Orkut they are generically broken down--general, business, and romantic. And you can specify your reasons for being on the site; for me, that's primarily business networking and touching base with old friends.
Anyway, I liked Orkut enough to join Friendster to see the difference. In comparison, Friendster is shallow and boring. But I was able to find RL friends on Friendster, so I'm stuck to checking it once and awhile unless they all move to Orkut.
There's two main problems with this sort of site-based social networking. One is that content is limited because users are split between two sites. This is the same issue as having friends on 4 different IM platforms. Either someone will create a Trillian for social networking, or they'll remain splintered and ultimately less useful and less used. Which leads to the second: search limitations are VERY prevalent on both sites (with Orkut, this suprised me a bit, given its connection with Google). Friendster takes the browse model of discovery as its primary method of networking growing. Orkut lets you do some demographic searching. And both let you search for friends if you have first and last names.
But that's only so helpful to me. I want a keyword search. I want to be able to type in "Rhodes College" and be able to see which old classmates are using the service. I want to type in "supercalifragilisticexpialidocious" and see who has the word in their profile. I want Google for social networks. And not just Orkut, but ALL social networks.
Oh, and while they're at it, what about being able to pick your enemies too? Being social isn't just about playing nice. It's also about butting heads.
Here I am, in the land of beta compromises.
Posted by brandon barr at February 11, 2004 07:05 AM | TrackBack
Dude, enemies on Friendster or what have you would get me to join up. Maybe they can have some sort of "villainy index" related to how many folks dislike you.
If such a function is ever incorporated (probably won't for weird libel type worries, at least slander shivers), lemme know. I'll make you my enemy, we can create warring factions and have a throw down in one of your habbo habitats. I will so own you.
Posted by: Midnight Platypus on February 11, 2004 11:08 PM