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Friendster Buzz
18 Jun 2003 by Matthew Linderman
Friendster seems to be all the rage these days amongst hipsters.
What the network has going for it, says Friendster dater Harris, is that it is “insanely addictive.” You can spend hours clicking around, cruising pictures and profiles. “I look at it every day, multiple times a day, like checking my e-mail,” he says. In some circles, it seems to have replaced e-mail as a more convenient form of communication. The publisher James notes, “For a lot of us, [Friendster] is how we keep in touch. It’s easier than e-mail” because you don’t have to remember people’s addresses - just click their pictures.
The cult certainly seems to be growing in my neck of the woods. I didn’t even know what it was until a couple of weeks ago and now I hear it mentioned often. Interestingly, it’s usually by non-techies that I would never expect to use such a service.
18 comments so far (Post a Comment)
18 Jun 2003 | Joshua Kaufman said...
It is a fun and useful service. But too bad about their logo and general lack of design.
18 Jun 2003 | Karl said...
I don't mind the lack of design so much as the principles that they based the system on.
There's no way to search for people who you don't already know, which means that you need to build your 'friends' network through degrees of separation. But what if you don't know anyone who's on the service in your area? You need to convince your friends to join.
I'd like to see something similar to Friendster that helps you meet *new* people. What happens if you're new to an area and you don't know anybody, but want something to go and do? *shrug* Not as useful to me as it could be, which is a shame.
18 Jun 2003 | fajalar said...
I am happy enough being 3 degrees from Kevin Bacon.
18 Jun 2003 | hurley#1 said...
I love that bit in the Village Voice piece about the guy who posed as Johnny Knoxville and got women to send him nude photos of themselves. It cracks me up that he assumes the photos were real. He doesn't seem to consider the possibility that the women were playing a trick on him too, by sending photos they nicked off the internet. I sure hope that's what they were doing, anyway.
19 Jun 2003 | Don Schenck said...
Meeting people is so difficult. I mean, you have to walk up to them, introduce yourself, and start a conversation.
Sheesh. Push yourself away from the keyboard and go surfing!
19 Jun 2003 | Jason said...
Um, I think some of you are not "getting it." The point of Friendster is that you're meeting people through friends... but instead of having to be at the same cocktail party or whatever, you're clicking on pictures. It's not an online dating service, it's a networking thing.
Haven't you ever met someone through a friend and discovered that you've actually attended a lot of the same parties or whatevers with him/her, but never actually met? Friendster, presumably, helps in this area.
19 Jun 2003 | freejoe76 said...
yup. met plenty of ex-girlfriends through this service, and might meet a couple future ones as well. I'm amazed that Friendster has gained 500,000 members in the past seven weeks. I don't know how they pay for it all. .. . .
20 Jun 2003 | Paul said...
I think it's interesting that so many have signed up so quickly, but I think it will be far more interesting to watch what happens to the service once the Friendster team starts charging.
21 Jun 2003 | Don Schenck said...
Hmmmm ... I'm thinking about starting "Moneyster" or "Wealthster" ... but I can't think of what it would do?
Ha ha.
Hmmmm ...
21 Jun 2003 | Don Schenck said...
I JUST THOUGHT OF SOMETHING!
Remember the Seinfeld episode where someone tells Kramer he's a "hipster doofus"?
That's ME!
24 Jun 2003 | Tim said...
So, a friend and I were discussing the merits of an "enemyster" directory last night ("Where exes meet!"), and, of course, someone's already beaten me to it....
26 Jun 2003 | p8 said...
"enemyster"
Or as in my enemy's enemy is my friend?
27 Jun 2003 | Don Schenck said...
How about Wealthster, a site where you can give microloans?
Dunno ... I'm stretching here.
09 Jul 2003 | Rocky said...
We are doing something very similar called tBLOG Friends. Check us out at www.tblog.com
11 Jul 2003 | jimbo said...
have you heard about friendsterless.com? kinda silly but so true! they claim to treat "social network addiction"
07 Aug 2003 | Kelly W. said...
"...it will be far more interesting to watch what happens to the service once the Friendster team starts charging..."
I think it's genius, actually.
Sure, there will be a big exodus of users to free sites like The Impersonals (or Make Out Club for the under 20s), but if even 1/8 of their current 3 million users are willing to pay a $6 a month, they will be in very good financial shape.
16 Jan 2004 | Emanuel said...
At WWDC, I listened to Apple representatives make some excellent points about taking the time to build a 100%-compliant Aqua application, and I think all developers need to look beyond the code and listen to what the folks at Apple have to say
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