Orkut 5 comments

25 Jan 2004 @ 08:13, by Flemming Funch Orkut is a new online social network. And I need another one of those like I need a flowerpot stuck on my head. It is getting a little irritating to go through the same ritual every time, of looking for people you know and inviting others you think might be interested. That should really be automatic. Most recently I had joined OpenBC, which I like. Has some features I like better than Ryze and not a lot of annoying "You'd actually see the results of this search if you were a GOLD member" messages. And a predominantly European focus. Got some very good contacts out of that already. And then Orkut is announced Thursday. Interesting phenomenon about how quickly things happen, and how somehow that network happened to right away seem more compelling, even though the features are not all that different from the other ones. For one thing, it is affiliated with Google, done by one of their employees, supposedly in his spare time, so it got a lot of exposure. And then it is by invitation only, which somehow makes it seem a slight bit more attractive, and might make it more likely that one feels obligated to invite all one's friends, so they aren't left out. I got the first invitation at 2AM. And didn't realize right away that the network had started the same day. But now, two days later, *everybody* seems to have joined it already, and it is buzzing with discussion groups and so forth. Well, *everybody* who normally is active in that kind of network. Which is a large group, but still largely the same faces. In 1995 my vision was to make a network of networks. Social network servers, where people could join the node that they were most attracted to, and there would be a way of linking them all together, so you could find each other even if you didn't join in exactly the same place. Well, I didn't quite figure out how to do that technically, so it became "just" one server with a particular social network. But now that it is a mainstream idea, embraced by a lot of techies, somebody really ought to figure out a way that they'll all interact with each other. Network connections should be more like a commodity. Like e-mail addresses and accounts. You'll choose a server and a client that has the features you like, but you should really be able to link to people on other servers as easily as on your local server. It should be controlled more by my local address book and preferences than by a particular server. I should be able to find people across all servers, and be able to find the special interest groups they've set up. That'll take adherance to standards. And some new ones are needed for the people networking thing. FOAF seems to be one of the more promising attempts in that direction. We need a set of Open Network standards that all these networks would have a competitive advantage in adhering to.

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