posted
So first came friendster, then orkut, and now metails.
These personal networking sites seem to be growing by leaps and bounds. They all provide a method for people to network with their friends and to meet friends of friends. However each is different offering a different set of features for their users.
Friendster was the first of the three. It has the most users. This is both a good and bad thing. Many users means that you can meet lots of people or bump into old friends with a greater likilhood. But it also means that the site can be very very slow which causes problems if you actually want to do something. The site lets you search through your network for people. And you can search through all members for names and emails. You can only view members who you are in your network. It has a bulliten board and a messaging system allowing you to communicate on the site. The site allows for testimonials and has a reporting system.
Orkut- Orkut is by invitation only. This means you have to know someone to get in. Orkut is much faster than Friendster. It gives you interesting statistics. How many people viewed your profile. What is the average path between you and people in your network. orkut has added features you can join a community, set up a photo album, create lists, you can bookmark people. They even have a crush list. You think someone's interesting? If you both add each other to your crush lists and orkut tells you. One of my favorite improvements is that you can search in particular locations. For example I like to search for people from Nebraska. But on Friendster that requires me to change my home in order to do that easily. Really annoying! Now I can search with ease!
Metails: This is the new kid on the block. It's a little different to navigate. Anyone can join this site. You can create public and private lists. You can have galleries and blogs. It also lets you know if someone's online. This way you can pester them if you know they're there. Metails also lets you share content from your lists and galleries. Like the picture your friend has of you dancing grab it and include it in your account. It lets you filter your mail. The navigation through the network is very visual. You can preview people before you look at their profile. It also has fun tabs allowing you to easily flip through someone's stuff keeping it nicely separated. The worst thing is that there aren't a lot of people using this site to it's fullest extent but it's only been around since the beginning of February and has 500 members in the first 9 days.
Anyway I thought this little summary would help people wondering about these types of sites know what's out there. Does anyone else know of any others or have any other comments. Check them out.
Posts: 872 | Registered: Mar 2002
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posted
One concern people have is the privacy policy. Friendster changed theirs early on from something nasty to something reasonable. Orkut's still at nasty. The gist of it is that Orkut owns the content you post onto the site, and can modify that content at will. This includes photos, messages, and artwork.
Also, many people believe that Friend Networking Site collect vast amounts of information about people, interests, and interactions that will primarily be used for advertising. This bothers people.
I guess the question is... Do these services provide you, the consumer, with enough benefits to outweigh the known negatives? I love being able to list my community-interests in orkut and discovering that there are 60 other people who have joined "swords and knives."
Posts: 1892 | Registered: Mar 2002
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posted
I guess I've always felt that once I post information on the web about myself I have no expectation of privacy. The web is a public place. I try to not put anything anywhere on the web if I don't want people or companies to know about it. Just like I don't stand in the middle of my town and yell my secrets to everyone.
There's also the consideration of privacy from individual members. I can imagine ways that people could use available information about you. I'd *love* to analyze the social network structures as research with machine learning techniques. Our university has lots of rules about using information about people though. I realize that if I find it interesting someone else probably does as well.
Posts: 872 | Registered: Mar 2002
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