Day 8

It occurred to me today that if even the Friendster folks, with all their minions, can't figure out how to sell their product to my friends and acquaintances, how am I, a lone guy on a computer, to sell their product? When younger, I believed in the adage (book title), "Do What You Love, and the Money Will Follow." The idea was that one's enthusiasm for the task would eventually lead to success. But what if one's enthusiasm is for something other folks have no enthusiasm about? Is generating sales a task of trying to get people to use a product they keep refusing or is it a task of recognizing where the market is and going toward it, whether that be in reconfiguring your audience or in reconfiguring your product? Friendster, I think, has recognized that, and that's why it's so big in Asia. If those are the folks that use the system, then that's where the site will focus (it's even in Tagalog now). And as a result, it has more users than MySpace and Facebook combined--just not in the United States (or probably Europe--I really don't know what the Europeans use for social networking).

So what I'm doing then, taking on this task, for thirty days, of pushing Friendster in my own life, perhaps is some great (okay, maybe less than great--maybe really tiny) tragedy, with me as the tragic star. I am Oedipus. I am setting out to go against the system, to go against what has already been deemed to happen. I am full of pride. I will come to a tragic downfall at the end. I will learn only my own irrelevance. I will not succeed.

Or maybe that it is too dire. Maybe success is right around the corner, and I am starting a tidal wave of enthusiasm, among friends, for the best social networking software of all! Maybe I'm a hero, not a tragic one but one in the best American movie sense. Maybe, when everything looks down, the third act will kick in and I--or rather, Friendster--will come out on top.

Or maybe my enthusiasm isn't great enough. Maybe in that is the flaw. Maybe if I believed more in social networking in general, I would have people screaming (or rather clicking) to get back to Friendster.

Fact is, I don't really know. What I do know is this. The stats for today: I wrote four people (one friend, one acquaintance, and two strangers, one of whom I suspect is a fembot given that she posted a hello in my comments a month ago and has nothing but a pretty picture in her profile). I had no views, no messages, no nothing. This brings the totals to as follows: ten Friendster friends written, one reply (I'm going to run out of Friendster friends to write soon); six acquaintances written or added as friends, one reply; three invitations extended, no replies; eight strangers written, no replies. Look at all those no replies (both replies I did get were from men). No wonder I never had any luck dating. I can't even make Friendster friends.