»a location-based social networking system that attempts to introduce & connect individuals based on the intersection of physical location (estimated through IP addresses, GPS data or wireless access points) & other personal properties they might have in common. the live, animated visualization represents related users in nearby locations & shows a "location wall", allowing users to broadcast & receive location-related information & events to others.« [via information aesthetics | umich.edu]

Wired: »More than a year after 'social networking' became the leading buzzword in internet startup circles, companies in the sector haven't gained the traction early enthusiasts predicted.«

Torsten Kleinz kommentiert Googles Variante des Friends-Network:"Erst langsam machen sich die Orkutianer mit den Möglichkeiten der Plattform vertraut. Die meisten eintrudelnden Nachrichten sind noch banal. Claudia [Namen geändert] ist jetzt auch bei Germans in Orkut dabei und wollte nur mal Bescheid sagen. Eva ist froh, mehr Orkut-Fans zu haben als Wesley Clark und Arnold Schwarzenegger und schickt den passsenden Link herum. Klaus möchte den deutschen Orkutianern Bescheid geben, dass eine neue Skat-Communy auf Mitglieder wartet."

Auch Ingo (Alumni aus Aachen) erinnert sich an seine Arbeit aus dem Info-Mapping-Seminar: "Vielleicht wäre es an der Zeit für ein Tool, welches integriert in Kommunikationsprozesse, etwa Email Verkehr, Projektplanung, Instant Messaging etc. Kompetenzen analysiert (Zukunftsmusik) oder manuell zuweisen lässt und im Stil von P2P ein »Wissensgeflecht« mit anderen Usern erstellt."

So schnell geht das wenn man eine gute Idee aus dem US-Raum in Deutschland lokalisiert. OpenBC für Geschäftsleute das, was Friendster oder Tribe.net für Privatleute ist. Nachdem ich mich kürzlich auch noch in Orkut.com eingetragen habe frage ich mich langsam: Wo soll das hinführen? Immerhin hab ich bei Orkut auch Arnold Schwarzenegger gefunden - was sicherlich ein guter Fake war.

»Social Nets Not Making Friends: "Perhaps it was inevitable. A backlash is under way against social networking services like Friendster, as more and more companies crowd to join the latest hot Internet trend."« [George Siemens (elearnspace)]

Ein Herr Christoph Janz hat mich auf Friendity hingewiesen -- offenbar so etwas wie das deutsche Friendster.

»The city is full of people we can't reach. We pass them on sidewalks, sit across from them in the subway and in restaurants; we glimpse their lighted windows from our own lighted windows late at night. That's in New York. In most of America, people float alongside one another on freeways as they drive between the city and the places where they live. To lock eyes with a stranger is to feel the gulf between proximity and familiarity and to wish -- at least sometimes, briefly, most of us -- that we could jump the hedges of our own narrow lives and find those people again when they drift out of sight.« [Corante: Social Software]

Clay Shirky: »Here's what has changed: We understand networks better—a lot better—than we used to, and we have much better tools for manipulating them. We are living in a Golden Age of network theory, where sociology, math, computer science, and software engineering are all combining to allow the average user to visualize, understand, and, most importantly, rely on the social and business networks that are part of their lives.«

Auf der Website Tribe.net können sich Individuen zu Interessensgemeinschaften zusammenschliessen.

Ein grundlegener Artikel zum Seminarthema von Clay Shirky:
»The thing that makes social software behave differently than other communications tools is that groups are entities in their own right. A group of people interacting with one another will exhibit behaviors that cannot be predicted by examining the individuals in isolation, peculiarly social effects like flaming and trolling or concerns about trust and reputation. This means that designing software for group-as-user is a problem that can't be attacked in the same way as designing a word processor or a graphics tool.«

Ross Mayfield: »Here is the initial social network analysis of the Blog Tribe at Ryze -- which maps the Friendship networks and Blogrolls of Tribe members. What's unique about this collaborative project is the mapping of blogspace and of how two unique communities intersect.«

Match.com ist ein sehr erfolgreicher Partnervermittlungsservice in den USA

Clay Shirky: »Power law distributions, the shape that has spawned a number of catch-phrases like the 80/20 Rule and the Winner-Take-All Society, are finally being understood clearly enough to be useful. For much of the last century, investigators have been finding power law distributions in human systems. The economist Vilfredo Pareto observed that wealth follows a "predictable imbalance", with 20% of the population holding 80% of the wealth. The linguist George Zipf observed that word frequency falls in a power law pattern, with a small number of high frequency words (I, of, the), a moderate number of common words (book, cat cup), and a huge number of low frequency words (peripatetic, hypognathous). Jacob Nielsen observed power law distributions in web site page views, and so on.«