The proliferation of networking sites.

[randomness]

I have a rule that I only join these things when someone I know invites me, and I never invite people who aren't already on the system. (I've had these rules since sixdegrees.com.) For me, that seems to strike a balance between not snubbing my friends and not spamming them.

Other people have different rules, like never joining any of them, or sending invitations to everyone they can think of; I can respect that.

The damn sites are proliferating wildly. The Social Networking Services Meta List has a whole raft of these things.

It just amazes me how many of these things there are.

I don't put any personal info in the things because I can't be bothered--it's not paranoia, just tedium--for one thing, my info is changing too often for me to keep up. In fact, I haven't bothered posting a picture for a while, either.

Every one of these things seems to have its own hook and its own particular lameness. Part of me wishes sixdegrees had figured out a business model so there wouldn't be so damn many of these sites. Then again, there might still be. I also wish there were some way to aggregate these links (is there?) but evidently everyone's playing the proprietary database game.

Any of them come up with a good way to make money yet?

Comments

[marmota.livejournal.com]

Any of them come up with a good way to make money yet?

A better question, which you touched on briefly, might be "How do we cut them off at their entrepeneurial knees so they'll stop trying?". Since they're all using a proprietary model (which really isn't such a bad thing, given privacy concerns), introducing one with a standardized open-access database model would encourage open sourcers to saturate the potential market with free product.

[r-ness.livejournal.com]

one with a standardized open-access database model would encourage open sourcers to saturate the potential market with free product.

Excellent idea.

I'd even venture that an open-source model might, if well designed, be more protective of privacy than a whole host of proprietary black boxes.

[beowabbit]

Yeah; I've thought for a long time that there ought to be some sort of open, interoperable protocol along the lines of Jabber for IM, so that foo@friendster.com could list bar@orkut.com as a friend (in the social networking sphere), and baz@livejournal.com could see bongo.blogs.com on zir Friends page (in the blogging sphere). I wonder if that's inevitable, or whether the fact that there are already a few blogging sites that have enough market share that they aren't forced to interoperate means it's not going to happen.

(And BTW, I'd added you as a friend, but for some reason you weren't on my Default View. I've fixed that, so you can expect me to start noticing stuff you post now. :-)

[r-ness.livejournal.com]

the fact that there are already a few blogging sites that have enough market share that they aren't forced to interoperate

So, I can't actually tell what market share they have. The Meta List people have done some traffic analysis on dating sites, but I don't know if they've done more than that.

you can expect me to start noticing stuff you post now.

Wheee! :)

[trifle.livejournal.com]

i'm sure this is a stupid question, as I know I know you--but who are you in non lj speak?

[r-ness.livejournal.com]

Hi! Just sent mail to you at trifle@livejournal.com.

[r-ness.livejournal.com]

Hmmm. Bounced. Going to try another address.

[r-ness.livejournal.com]

Sorry, forgot the direct answer here. We talked about LJ and friends lists in ccunningham, bwilder, and B's living room. :)

[trifle.livejournal.com]

gotcha new lj friend!