friendster

I've been on Friendster (some sort of online dating site) since early August. I have 305,754 people in my "personal network."

Funny, I don't know 300,000 people; yet all of these people are in my network. Upon further exploration, I noticed that George W. Bush, Stanford University, Batman, and Saddam Hussein, and Osama bin Ladin are in my network as well. Figures.

On that note, I went to a panel on Social Networks today. The panel event was sold out; we didn't purchase tickets ahead of time so we almost didn't get in except for the good graces of a couple of people at my company who pulled strings to get us in.

The guy (Jon Abrams) who founded Friendster was on the panel, and despite not saying anything interesting the whole night, it because clear that his business model is to undercut match.com and provide an alternative online dating site (though with a twist) that he can charge for.

Well, I haven't found a date yet off Friendster, but I'm keeping my fingers crossed.