Making Friendsters In High Places

from the catching-on dept

I've talked about the various online social networks before, pointing out that I thought they were being overhyped quite a bit, and would have a tough time sustaining it. I still haven't quite figured out any of these are all that different than "sixdegrees" was five years ago. However, it appears of all the various networks, Friendster seems to be getting the most attention. It's apparently almost reached 1 million users - though, I wonder how many are (a) real and (b) active users. I have a Friendster account - but that was just so I could check the site out, and stop getting bugged by a few friends who use it. My account has no information about me, other than links to my friends who use the service as well. With a little exploring I discovered there are plenty of "fake" Friendsters out there. I doubt that Keanu Reeves is actually using Friendster, but his profile is there, for example. Meanwhile, no one has explained how Friendster is going to survive. They say they have plans to make money, and if they can do it - more power to them, but if it cuts off the community aspect in any way, it could kill the whole network. In the meantime, the article points out that some people are selling their Friendster networks on eBay - which seems to go against the whole point of the service, but might be one of the few ways anyone makes money from Friendster.