Whither Friendster? Whither Facebook? Whither the next big thing?

[samedietc]

when the rubble clears from the great friendster crash of '04, i will have nothing. ben will have nothing. none of us will have anything. no more friends. no more testimonials. no more instant self-assurance nor affirmation of life's few treasures. nothing. zero. abcess. lack. waste. enemies.
Danny Gibson wrote that testimonial for me in 2003, and

Comments

[samedietc]

that is serendipity. i sent along stick figure hamlet, not knowing what other archive/resume i could supply. this friend of a friend apparently is working on the epic of gilgamesh, in some capacity. i like connecting people, but frankly, how to do it?

as for connecting to people online vs. in person, the book Bowling Alone by Robert Putnam claims that fuller human interaction can only take place in certain situations where you're not really interested--that's a terrible description on my part, but here's some examples: church is better than a porsche forum, because in the latter you only get to talk about cars, whereas in church you can talk about anything. (some people have taken issue with this, for clear reasons--can you really talk about anything in church?)

putnam isn't the only one to argue that "weak ties" are better for transmitting novel information ( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Weak_tie )--you know, like, you get more out of living in an apartment building with acquaintances than you would living by yourself and being in email contact with just your closest friends.

(as for whether people are the same in different environments, that's the can of worms that ate detroit.)

[mrvoid]

as for connecting to people online vs. in person, the book Bowling Alone by Robert Putnam claims that fuller human interaction can only take place in certain situations where you're not really interested

Tell that to the casual encounters section of Craigslist.

As far as the comic-writin' friend goes, feel free to give them my e-mail if they're interested.