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

[tragic_ohara]

My understanding is that Friendster's popularity waned as MySpace's waxed, and then so with Facebook. It's likely that the features each offers have something to do with it, but I think mostly it's trends. People move toward whatever is newly perceived as popular, leaving the old new thing behind, and on the Internet the frequency of that cycle is accelerated. So, yes, it was more or less a mass migration.

I guess I tend to take a skeptical view of things in this arena: the Internet is already reflecting our internal culture as well as it's going to in terms of its focus on commerce, instant gratification, and avenues toward minor fame and self-importance; in this regard it's also meeting its potential to a great degree, since it would require the people who use it to behave differently for anything greater to be accomplished; and other such grouchy proclamations. I don't know; the Internet has certainly changed the way we live (and like any such change, bad comes with the good), and maybe that's enough.

[samedietc]

Curious thought: while Facebook clearly has more (3rd-party) applets than Friendster, the Facebook Wall is essentially the Friendster Testimonial system with the difference that the Wall was specifically designed for on-going communication; that's both a function-difference (the ability to see "wall-to-wall" chats) and an idea-difference (since Testimonials really don't sound like communications that go back and forth, but sound rather like one-time endorsements). Think, for instance, of the "Dave Warth stepped in" series of testimonials--something like that could have kept people going back to Friendster, if only there were some way the website itself urged people towards ongoing interactions

[tragic_ohara]

Well, when I say 'changing the way we live', I mean in the very quotidian sense that we check our messages constantly now, expect instant returns on our communicative efforts, are accustomed to a bombardment of poorly-filtered information and to plumbing that information for any little question, etc. I don't know that it's brought about a greater cultural shift or anything.

I suppose what I was saying is that we can imagine it doing all sorts of things, but I'm pessimistic that it will ever do them. I think shopping and porn and scams and blog posts and fan fiction and news feeds and specious Wikipedia articles are pretty much what the Internet is going to do, although it will probably find newer and flashier ways of going about it as time goes on.

[samedietc]

as in the whole split between my past-nostalgia and my future-anticipation, i am also split between thinking quotidian and thinking utopian: the everyday changes are super-important, but i wonder if the changes are mostly cosmetic--are our email checking habits all that important? (this all raises the question of how important habit/style is or could ever be.) what i mean is, aren't specious Wikipedia articles, for instance, just a new form of specious books and pamphlets--is there a real difference between me publishing an anti-Semitic paper tract and me maintaining an anti-Semitic website (or even, say, writing/publishing the hoax Protocols)?

Bonus question: can we really imagine the internet being different? I mean, imagining some possible technological changes (which I have no knowledge of: what are people researching these days), give me some possible Internets.

[mrvoid]

The problem with Friendster is that once you put your name and photo and shit up, and add yourself a friends list, there's not much to do except lean back and say, "All right. What's for dinner?"

They may have added some shiny gewgaws in the last few years, but honestly, it's been so long since I used it with any regularity that I just wouldn't know. There was just no reason to log in because, well, I had set up my page. That was that done with.

MySpace is exactly the same. I have no idea why it's more popular, unless there's a real market for a version of Friendster that induces epileptic seizures in child molesters.

As for untapped internet potential, I want to see a version of MySpace or Friendster or Little Lord Fauntleroy's Club For Those Who Could Afford College Facebook that doesn't list your favorite bands, but does list skills, and areas of specialized knowledge. So that if, for instance, I'm absolutely fucking stymied as to how to install my new garbage disposal, I can go on this website and click on my friend who

[samedietc]

re: Friendster's low return-rate, see my comment above on the Testimonial system as a proto-Wall. but you're definitely right that, as it stands, Facebook gives you more reasons to check back. (Those are the two I know best, though I also have accounts at LinkedIn, Goodreads, MySpace, Amazon, Livejournal, Blogspot, etc.--and of all those, MySpace is the least attractive

[mrvoid]

LinkedIn didn't occur to me... it's definitely more along the lines of the direction I'd love to see these sites go. Not only can you go around friending folks, but it's actually got a useful function beyond "OMG, YOU LOOK TEH CUTES IN UR PIC!!!" I have nothing against the use of these social network sites, but it just feels like a system that allows information transfer between total strangers -- on a global scale -- in split-second time -- is getting pissed away on two teenagers sending each other Fallout Boy lyrics

[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

[jundai]

It may be worth mentioning that with each iteration the phenomenon grows, either in terms of sheer numbers (e.g., MySpace and Facebook) or in terms of cultivating some niche aspect of a previous site (e.g., GoodReads, LinkedIn, etc.). We have come a long ways from sixdegrees.com

[tragic_ohara]

I'm pretty sure the next big thing will be when they invent tattoos with machine-rewriteable ink, and we all start posting testimonials directly to one another's bodies.

[samedietc]

yeah, i am also interested in the social networking that occurs in other venues (Amazon will be my example), although so many of them are consumer-based (though that could be simply cultural reflection--what isn't consumption? well, there is craftster, but that's consumption in another form. maybe that's all there is

[jundai]

I've never read Snow Crash (or any of his books, actually