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January 23, 2004
The one-to-one social network
Posted by David Weinberger
As
Ross has noted, there's a new social network on the block:
Orkut. from Google.
I think I see where this is going: I'm going to have a different social network for every friend. Then a protocol for networking the social networks will arise. The protocol will be TCP/IP (The Commutative Pal Is Pestered) and the network of social networks will be called the Intersocialnet.
But, unlike the Internet, the value of the network of social networks won't go up as the number of nodes increases for the same reason that my real social network doesn't expand every time someone is born. In fact, when I reach my breaking point (which is scheduled to occur about 4 hours from now) and start autoresponding to those upbeat emails with a curt "No, you are NOT my friend!", the Intersocialnet will turn me into a pariah wandering the digital earth friendsterless and friendless all my days.
Thanks a lot, Orkut!
According to the
Butt Ugly Weblog, "orkut" is a slang term for "orgasm" in Finnish. Unfortunately, the site is
named after its creator, Orkut Buyukkokten, whose parents were either cruel or not Finnish.
On the other hand, what
isn't a slang term for "orgasm"? I mean, even "Finnish" is, as in: "Didn't you Finnish yet?"
(Thanks to Janne Jalkanen for pointing out the dirty Scandinavian parts.)
Comments (6)
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1. Michael Fagan on January 23, 2004 7:33 PM writes...
You can't complain about a new service just because others already do the same, that's like complaining about meeting new people because your've already got 150 friends :-)
Besides, there is a *cough* FOAF *cough* social network standard already.
Permalink to Comment2. Michael Fagan on January 23, 2004 7:35 PM writes...
hmn, seems that this comment system uses wiki-like syntax. Pardon my *bold* -ness
Permalink to Comment3. Silke Schümann on January 23, 2004 10:29 PM writes...
Well sure, just another service and if your already in two or three, it get's weird as you can't cope nor mix them properly. I wouldn't want to update ten twenty services, only because I moved or hired for a new job. The naturel decay will be, that in these networks the number of false addresses and details about peaple increases and the more dead profiles, the more ridicule it get's.
Permalink to Comment4. Janne Jalkanen on January 24, 2004 3:42 AM writes...
The name is, however, not exactly optimal. Or is, depends on your point of view and what exactly you want "social software" to mean. See
http://www.ecyrd.com/ButtUgly/Wiki.jsp?page=Main_blogentry_230104_1
Permalink to Comment5. Julian Bond on January 24, 2004 5:50 AM writes...
FOAF! If all these networks exported the relationships as FOAF then one or more people could build the Meta-site that would let us explore the YANSN-sphere. Just as all that RSS and HTML let's us use Technorati and Blogdex to explore the Blogosphere.
Ecademy, Typepad are aleady doing this. We should ask (nay, demand!) that the others join in.
Permalink to Comment6. Janne Jalkanen on January 24, 2004 12:43 PM writes...
Well, we Finns are never quite finnished, we can keep going and going and going... :-).
Seriously, I think this just points out the difficulty of finding good names in this global era.
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