tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-51033189225491601772023-11-15T09:45:42.815-08:00Friendster GuyShort Story Readerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01472245801977188118noreply@blogger.comBlogger32125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5103318922549160177.post-90152906018954891262009-03-31T16:15:00.001-07:002009-07-30T14:21:54.993-07:00Day 31: The Final Nod<span style="font-family:trebuchet ms;">The night brought no more queries or responses. Or actually, it brought one response: No, from one of my invitees. Somehow, I'm not surprised. Hence, the totals remain the same as yesterday. I won't bother to repeat them.</span><br /><br /><span style="font-family:trebuchet ms;">This is the part where I do Schindler's List, where I think, If I'd only tried harder. Schindler wondered what if he'd given up his ring and his car to save people. I wonder if, maybe, instead of contacting three people a day, I'd contacted twelve. Or if I'd spent more time on Facebook trying to get people to come back to Friendster. Or if I'd contacted twenty people a day. Or thirty? How much time, how many people, is enough? When do you know you've truly tried hard--enough? When is it time to quit?</span><br /><br /><span style="font-family:trebuchet ms;">I wonder myself sometimes in regard to dating. So many queries. So many women asked out. So many rejections. Do I fail because I don't try hard enough? Or would it not matter at all? There's a particular singles Web site among people of my faith that I used to frequent. At one point, I'm pretty certain I'd written every single woman on that site, at least of close to my age. Most didn't respond. The few that did either disappeared after a few e-mails or grew into friends but not much more. Try harder? But where? How? Sometimes, it feels like I've exhausted every resource.</span><br /><br /><span style="font-family:trebuchet ms;">On Friendster, of course, there are more resources because there are more people. Try hard enough long enough, I might have found someone who actually was into using it--and not just using it with me. I mean, it's popular in Asia apparently--I could have wandered into the Asian realm and had penpals from the Philliphines galore perhaps. But among Americans, it seemed the wrong place to look for connections, and had I found such connections, I don't know that they would have had so much appeal to me or I to them. A few messages, and we likely would have parted. Such is the difficulty in making friends, virtual or otherwise.</span>Short Story Readerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01472245801977188118noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5103318922549160177.post-1784216566484239972009-03-30T18:01:00.001-07:002009-03-30T18:01:53.992-07:00Day 30<span style="font-family: trebuchet ms;">So here it is, thirty days. Today, I sent out my last Friendster messages--my last lures. Will any fish bite? Last call, last chance, last whatever. Maybe folks have been holding out on me. Maybe I'll have about thirty-eight messages in my inbox tomorrow after nothing to show for all of my efforts over the last few days and little to show before that. That's right, nothing yesterday either. This means, after thirty days, my efforts amount to twenty-four Friendster friends written, two replies; fifteen acquaintances written or added as friends, one reply; seven invitations extended, one acceptance; forty-eight strangers written, one reply; five profile views; two added friends. Pretty sad.</span>Short Story Readerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01472245801977188118noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5103318922549160177.post-3216351964152220892009-03-29T08:51:00.001-07:002009-07-30T14:23:07.352-07:00Day 29<span style="font-family:trebuchet ms;">Yesterday, one of my Friendster invites e-mailed me back, claiming ignorance--confusion--over whether he should befriend the me on the left side of my photo or the me on the right side. Alas, an excuse. But at least I know he got the note. He didn't join Friendster.</span><br /><br /><span style="font-family:trebuchet ms;">So the question is inevitable, after nearly thirty days of constant usage and trumping of this cause and little success at all: Why keep a Friendster account? At one time, I had hoped that Friendster would help me keep in contact with a few friends who have since moved on out of the area. But those friends don't use their account, I take it, because they have not replied to any messages I've sent. Perhaps, I might be able to dig them up on some other network, or perhaps they are lost to the oblivion that is humanity, the billions of us that haunt this planet, often with the same name, and make it difficult to find the one person we are looking for. So obviously, keeping tabs on people is not the main reason to keep the account.</span><br /><br /><span style="font-family:trebuchet ms;">And yet, after this thirty days is over, I probably will keep the account open. Why? Sure, I like the idea of disappearing, especially if the account isn't being used. I'm kind of tired of the whole social networking thing anyway. Going nondigital seems kind of cool. But I also hold out hope that out there someone might be looking for me who I want to be found by. That, I suppose, is one reason I'll keep the account, as well as many of the other accounts I have. Another is that the only way onto many of these sites is to have a profile registration one's self. So it's a matter of convenience, keeping a profile just so that one can occasionally--even rarely--get onto the site should it prove useful. But will it?</span><br /><br /><span style="font-family:trebuchet ms;">After twenty-nine days, here's what I have to show for my efforts: twenty-four Friendster friends written, two replies; fifteen acquaintances written or added as friends, one reply; seven invitations extended, one acceptance; forty-five strangers written, one reply; five profile views; two added friends.</span>Short Story Readerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01472245801977188118noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5103318922549160177.post-76527863619802046212009-03-28T17:09:00.000-07:002009-03-28T17:11:24.809-07:00Day 28<span style="font-family: trebuchet ms;">Today I managed to have one new profile view--and a new message. Of course, the message was more of the same--come to Facebook, or also Twitter. I suppose Twitter is the up-and-coming service, which I have yet to fully understand. As a non-cell-phone user, it doesn't seem very applicable to me, and it seems frankly a bit annoying. Why would I want to read six-word messages every couple of minutes from friends and acquaintances? Quite distracting. There's something kind of nice about being offline at times, unreachable--something that seems like one is able to be much more in the moment. (Beyond that, when I think of how much time I spend at work replying to constant streams of e-mail and how much I can accomplish when I simply turn e-mail off and thus refuse to even look at it--something I only do when I'm working after hours--just how much of a distraction technology is becomes clear.)</span><br /><br /><span style="font-family: trebuchet ms;">The totals: twenty-four Friendster friends written, two replies; fourteen acquaintances written or added as friends, one reply; seven invitations extended, one acceptance; forty-three strangers written, one reply; five profile views; two added friends.</span>Short Story Readerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01472245801977188118noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5103318922549160177.post-60947007910364818562009-03-27T15:17:00.000-07:002009-03-28T17:11:47.474-07:00Day 27<span style="font-family:trebuchet ms;">Maybe I was overemphasizing the frequency of spam as being important to how much a software is used. Today I had some spam message claiming to be from Classmates. Who uses Classmates? You have to pay for virtually every service you'd actually want to use.</span><br /><span style="font-family:trebuchet ms;"></span><br /><span style="font-family:trebuchet ms;">Anyway, I saw no progress on the Friendster front overnight. This means that the totals now stand as such: twenty-four Friendster friends written, two replies; fourteen acquaintances written or added as friends, one reply; seven invitations extended, one acceptance; forty strangers written, no replies; four profile views; two added friends.</span><br /><span style="font-family:trebuchet ms;"></span><br /><span style="font-family:trebuchet ms;">Three days to go. I know, that shouldn't be the attitude of someone looking to get friends to use Friendster again, but I'm getting tired.</span>Short Story Readerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01472245801977188118noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5103318922549160177.post-44171100236359754042009-03-26T21:03:00.001-07:002009-03-26T21:03:27.721-07:00Day 26<span style="font-family:trebuchet ms;">Today, I received my first spam message from Facebook--or a Facebook faker--to my personal account. Over the past week, I've gotten several to my work account. I guess this pretty much proves that Facebook is taking over, since I haven't have gotten any such notes from MySpace of late--or from Friendster. It also shows that someone has figured out how to spam in Facebook, which the absence of has, I think, helped make Facebook popular. And it may be the next link in pushing people toward yet another network, though which one at this point, I wouldn't have a clue. There are so many, but in terms of general "friend" accounts, MySpace and Facebook seem to be it. Unless of course people come back to Friendster. Other accounts--ones I actually use more frequently--are more specialized: Good Reads, Fictionaut. Take an interest you share and join a network that involves people who only share your interest. It's pretty good networking, but it breaks down the pattern of making new friends locally or making friends of friends.</span><br /><br /><span style="font-family:trebuchet ms;">So today I tried something a little different. I invited two new people and wrote to one friend who I'd neglected to write. I figured the two new people would understand me, and the friend probably wouldn't (hence the invite and the delay in writing the other). I also had one more profile view, by a complete stranger I haven't even written to. Strange. Maybe I showed up on some "highlight" page. Wouldn't that be cool? My special profiles on the opening page seem to be the same people all the time.<br /><br />The totals now stand at the following: twenty-four Friendster friends written, two replies; fourteen acquaintances written or added as friends, one reply; seven invitations extended, one acceptance; thirty-seven strangers written, no replies; four profile views; two added friends.</span><br /><br /><span style="font-family:trebuchet ms;">Rock on. This has got to work eventually. Maybe if I continued for another two or three years? Eh?</span>Short Story Readerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01472245801977188118noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5103318922549160177.post-36973340119226287232009-03-25T17:08:00.000-07:002009-03-25T17:11:11.263-07:00Day 25<span style="font-family:trebuchet ms;">Today's results--you know them already: twenty-three Friendster friends written, two replies; fourteen acquaintances written or added as friends, one reply; five invitations extended, one acceptance; thirty-seven strangers written, no replies; three profile views; two added friends. Ooh, deja vu. (Blogger's supposed to be down tomorrow night, so there's a possibility I won't update tomorrow. But that doesn't mean the Friendster work will stop. Not, at least, for another five days. Scrap that: Blogger will only be down for ten minutes, so I guess I will update--or so the theory goes.)</span>Short Story Readerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01472245801977188118noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5103318922549160177.post-36061281633227707442009-03-24T17:48:00.000-07:002009-03-24T17:50:22.136-07:00Day 24<span style="font-family: trebuchet ms;">The results of this experiment seem to be assured. If this were a movie, this is where things would go into hyperdrive, this, the last quarter of our story. Something would swoop in and make things all start getting better. I would find the "secret" and would open the way to all those Friendster foot soldiers wanting to be part of Friendster nation. Cue dramatic music. (Wait for denouement, where I stride off with my Friendster girlfriend amid the cheers of all the people I've brought together via social networking software.)</span><br /><br /><span style="font-family: trebuchet ms;">But this is not a movie, so the ending is a good deal more predictable. This is an ending in keeping with the beginning. This is no bang. This is a whimper. I glide out quietly, a failure. If I want to network, I go where the masses of people like me are. I learn that, as I knew all along, I am irrelevant. I am not a trendsetter. But the end is not yet here, so I trudge on, tiring. I am heroic. I am tragic. Or I am pitiful. I am all three, depending on which storyline you want to put over this one.</span><br /><br /><span style="font-family: trebuchet ms;">Today's results--you know them already: twenty-three Friendster friends written, two replies; fourteen acquaintances written or added as friends, one reply; five invitations extended, one acceptance; thirty-five strangers written, no replies; three profile views; two added friends.</span>Short Story Readerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01472245801977188118noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5103318922549160177.post-49008002113500078762009-03-23T17:30:00.000-07:002009-03-23T17:35:00.829-07:00Day 23<span style="font-family:trebuchet ms;">E-mailed three more folks today on Friendster, all folks I don't know. I've pretty much given up on finding folks I do know who will actually correspond. Last night, talking with one of my friends to whom I'd sent an invitation, he simply noted his confusion. Why'd you send that to me? Alas, the invitation was trashed without even a look-see at the site.</span><br /><span style="font-family:trebuchet ms;"></span><br /><span style="font-family:trebuchet ms;">The totals are now as follows: twenty-three Friendster friends written, two replies; fourteen acquaintances written or added as friends, one reply; five invitations extended, one acceptance; thirty-one strangers written, no replies; three profile views; two added friends. </span><br /><span style="font-family:trebuchet ms;"></span><br /><span style="font-family:trebuchet ms;">Yeah, if you get the idea that I'm really kind of looking forward to the end, you're right. I sense that all I'm doing by mailing people, whose profiles are there to be mailed to, is annoying folks. But then, that's what I generally feel like when I go up to total strangers or even sometimes when I go up to friends. Hey, am I annoying you? If I am, I will go away. Better yet, I won't even come over there. Folks think I'm unfriendly. I'm just trying not to be a nuisance. Experiences like this make me think I truly am the latter.</span>Short Story Readerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01472245801977188118noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5103318922549160177.post-6089111007363083152009-03-22T11:19:00.001-07:002009-03-22T11:19:27.536-07:00Day 22<span style="font-family: trebuchet ms;">So today, I got another invitation to be a friend on Facebook--this from someone who is a MySpace friend. Does this mean he's migrating? I accepted the friendship, but I advised him that it would be even better if he joined me on Friendster. Will he do so? Who knows? I also managed to find a couple of people from Britain I met about four years ago in Spain and wrote to them. Facebook users, of course. Oh well. No finding those folks on Friendster, or many others, but I keep trying.</span><br /><br /><span style="font-family: trebuchet ms;">I realized today that I don't know which of the five friends out of the twenty-eight I had when I started this I haven't written. I suspect I've written all but a couple actually. So--sigh--I'm out of friends to write. I am now simply scrolling through the stranger rolls, with no apparent progress. The totals are now as follows: twenty-three Friendster friends written, two replies; fourteen acquaintances written or added as friends, one reply; five invitations extended, one acceptance; twenty-eight strangers written, no replies; three profile views; two added friends.</span>Short Story Readerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01472245801977188118noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5103318922549160177.post-58669073893868713442009-03-21T17:53:00.000-07:002009-03-21T17:54:07.417-07:00Day 21<span style="font-family: trebuchet ms;">Last night I called a friend who I had Friendster mailed a few weeks before. I hadn't heard from him since he moved six weeks ago. He told me, when I called, that he's been thinking about me just that day. You see, he'd been looking at his MySpace account and thinking about getting rid of it, because all he uses now is Facebook. (It's true--people are migrating!) But then, there was me--I wasn't on Facebook, but I was on MySpace, and how to keep in touch with me. But I am on Facebook, I told him--look me up. I also told him that I had Friendster messaged him. He laughed. He hadn't been on Friendster in years. Sigh. He doesn't even know when he has messages there. Anyway, best of all, I noted, was just e-mail. You see, other than Friendster (for this month at least), I don't really use the social networking software, so the best way to get in touch with me is via e-mail.</span><br /><br /><span style="font-family: trebuchet ms;">To me a networking site should be about networking, about meeting new people, not about simply networking with folks you already know. I don't want broadcast messages--or to create broadcast messages--for people who are my actual friends. I want the personal touch. The one-to-one message. I think that in part is what I don't enjoy about the network software, where these six-word comments stand in for real communication. E-mail, of course, can be the same way. But the difference is that it can also be substantive, and that is, I suppose, the way I usually use it. Some have said that I write real letters. There are paragraphs. There is usually at least a page, sometimes many pages, of a given correspondence.</span><br /><br /><span style="font-family: trebuchet ms;">Maybe the problem, then, for me is that I haven't really settled into the digital communication age. Nevertheless, I try--by contacting three new Friendster people each day. The totals are now as follows: twenty-three Friendster friends written, two replies; fourteen acquaintances written or added as friends, one reply; five invitations extended, one acceptance; twenty-five strangers written, no replies; three profile views; two added friends.</span>Short Story Readerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01472245801977188118noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5103318922549160177.post-29960926462404322212009-03-20T15:46:00.000-07:002009-03-20T15:47:17.931-07:00Day 20<span style="font-family:trebuchet ms;">Not much time today, so I'll just do the numbers, with more to come tomorrow. As expected, there was no action on my profile, so we're holding steady. It's all rather predictable. Will I break out in here somewhere? Twenty-two Friendster friends written, two replies; fourteen acquaintances written or added as friends, one reply; five invitations extended, one acceptance; twenty-three strangers written, no replies; three profile views; two added friends.</span>Short Story Readerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01472245801977188118noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5103318922549160177.post-5839917693963198232009-03-19T18:37:00.000-07:002009-03-19T18:38:31.576-07:00Day 19<span style="font-family: trebuchet ms;">A few days ago I spied someone I know from church on Friendster--not the person I wrote about earlier. This is a local person, a person I see virtually every week--a young person, barely past eighteen (she was eighteen days ago and is now apparently nineteen). This is a person who, when Friendster was actually getting used with regularity among my peer set would have been sixteen at the oldest but more like fourteen or thirteen. I was intrigued. Was Friendster finding a home among the youths? You know, now that old peope have invaded Facebook, maybe youths have to find a new spot, so why not return to the first.</span><br /><br /><span style="font-family: trebuchet ms;">I finally got around to looking at the profile today. I'd had some trouble refinding it, and I hadn't clicked on it the first time because part of me wasn't sure I was ready to write, was ready to open this door. But then I figured, why not? So now it's written, the message to her. But her profile, I have to say, was a bit of a disappointment. She had zero friends. None. Zilch. My theories about youths were incorrect. Perhaps one of the most startling things, however, was that, not only was her profile up to date (she moved here within the last year, so I knew she'd been on relatively recently), but it was also new. That's right--new. She joined in 2008. Almost all the profiles I come across from folks here in town were created in 2003, some in 2004--you'd be hard pressed to find anything past 2006.</span><br /><br /><span style="font-family: trebuchet ms;">I figure maybe she's looking to make friends locally. And what a great way to do it, no? Go to Friendster. But unfortunately, she's late--the party is gone. I want her to have friends. I want people to write to her, to Friendster her. Now, I have more reasons to make this site something to believe in, to enjoy again.</span><br /><br /><span style="font-family: trebuchet ms;">But so far, even with all my attempts, I am seeing few gains. Today's numbers are a case in point. Despite all my attempts to communicate, the return numbers are stubbornly holding steady: twenty-one Friendster friends written, two replies; fourteen acquaintances written or added as friends, one reply; five invitations extended, one acceptance; twenty-one strangers written, no replies; three profile views; two added friends.</span>Short Story Readerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01472245801977188118noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5103318922549160177.post-66754679989772560782009-03-18T19:04:00.000-07:002009-03-18T19:05:06.603-07:00Day 18<span style="font-family: trebuchet ms;">It's desperate times here. I've hit the Friendster friends I barely know, but I'm writing them anyway. I'm writing folks I have seen around town, years ago, who have moved away, who I never know. I'm writing complete strangers. I'm looking for someone who is doing something on Friendster, someone close by. A search through the local people field shows that some folks have been active in the past week--one I even found had been active in the past twenty-four hours. But click on their profiles, and the profile is "private." Bummer. I'm being locked out, man. That's what I think is happening. It's not that people aren't using Friendster. It's that people are ignoring me on Friendster. There's likely a whole world of folks using this thing, intent on seeing me out of the network. Well, it's not going to happen. Not for another twelve days at least. So tough.</span><br /><br /><span style="font-family: trebuchet ms;">Today's totals: twenty Friendster friends written, two replies; thirteen acquaintances written or added as friends, one reply; five invitations extended, one acceptance; twenty strangers written, no replies; three profile views; two added friends. How do you make an emoticon for tears?</span>Short Story Readerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01472245801977188118noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5103318922549160177.post-91950599083636253222009-03-17T16:36:00.001-07:002009-03-17T16:36:30.301-07:00Day 17<span style="font-family: trebuchet ms;">So even though I have thirty Friendster friends, part of me isn't too keen on writing the last ten of them. Why? Because they're those people who added me who I barely know--folks who I wonder whether they would even remember me, folks who added me in a moment in which they met me (a bar around her used to keep a computer online at all times and people would check their Friendster, or later MySpace, accounts from it). I can imagine writing one of these people, and them answering back, who are you? "I'm me--I'm on your friends list!" "How did you get on my friends list?" "You added me." "Why would I add you? I don't even know you? Who are you?" That's the conversation I imagine.</span><br /><br /><span style="font-family: trebuchet ms;">And yet, if I'm e-mailing total strangers, why not e-mail the friends who I barely know? I guess the only thing that fills me with trepidation is that conversation above. See, if I write to a complete stranger and get that response, no big deal. I am a stranger--I don't know you. Much easier to accept that line of questioning from someone who really doesn't know me as opposed to someone who knows me--or knew me--and has forgotten me. That's just depressing.</span><br /><br /><span style="font-family: trebuchet ms;">But e-mail said Friendster people I did today, in an attempt to get them using Friendster again as well. Maybe I might grow closer to said people. Maybe they'll write back--hey, I remember you! Or maybe, like most, they'll just ignore me.</span><br /><br /><span style="font-family: trebuchet ms;">Today's totals: nineteen Friendster friends written, two replies; twelve acquaintances written or added as friends, one reply; five invitations extended, one acceptance; nineteen strangers written, no replies; three profile views; two added friends. No progress today. But it's coming. It's got to.</span>Short Story Readerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01472245801977188118noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5103318922549160177.post-90107087762174185002009-03-16T17:15:00.001-07:002009-03-16T17:15:58.690-07:00Day 16<span style="font-family: trebuchet ms;">I'm struck by the large number of free sites on the Internet, all supported by advertising--or not. How, I wonder, do so many of these Internet-only companies stay in business. I think of Blogger, for example, which doesn't necessarily include ads, unless the user him- or herself adds them. (Create a homepage on Geocities, by contrast, and unless you pay someone money for the site, expect an annoying pop-up box ad to be perenially on the site.) And I think also of these social networking sites. They sell adspace; people fill the adspace. But how often do people click on Internet ads? I almost never do. I suppose there is some relevance in just presenting your name on the site, like a billboard. But it's hard for me to believe that whole networks of personal profiles are supported this way. (Then again, I'm amazed that there are enough companies to take out ads in newspaper and on television stations to actually pay for all the materials in those media forms as well. There are an awful lot of folks wanting to get a message out, willing to pay for it, and--more importantly--able to pay for it.)</span><br /><br /><span style="font-family: trebuchet ms;">Today's ads--Tivo, Vonage, some online dating site (a lot of those advertise on social networking sites, which I wonder about because how, with the networking site offer free places to meet singles, does a site that expects you to pay expect folks using the former to be tempted by the latter?) I didn't click on any of the ads. I have no television for Tivo and no desire to change phone service or sign up for cell phone service. So . . . But maybe the words will stick in my head and the next time I want said services I'll think, wow, they advertise on the Internet somewhere. Maybe. I suppose it works. After all, when I read a story online and months later come across an author's name again, sometimes I wonder, that person's name sounds familiar. Eventually, occasionally, I end up becoming a fan--someone who actually seeks that person's work out.</span><br /><br /><span style="font-family: trebuchet ms;">Then there was this quiz ad--you know the type, one that dares you to answer a question (90 percent of people apparently answer wrong). Usually, I ignore these. Today, I went ahead and clicked on it, expecting I'd find some phone ad at the end, expecting me to answer a bunch of questions or sign up for something before I could get the correct answer. No thanks. Indeed, more questions were to be asked. No time for that.</span><br /><br /><span style="font-family: trebuchet ms;">A Netflix ad. No thanks. Haven't signed up and don't plan to. An opportunity to vote for Pepsi or Coke and win a laptop. Who cares? I'm not giving out information based on that so that people can bother me.</span><br /><br /><span style="font-family: trebuchet ms;">Today's totals if anyone cares: eighteen Friendster friends written, two replies; twelve acquaintances written or added as friends, one reply; five invitations extended, one acceptance; seventeen strangers written, no replies; three profile views; two added friends. Note the increase in friends and views here. I'm shooting up the ladder of Friendster friends. I now have thirty. Someone actually accepted my invitation. Hot dog! We're on our way.</span>Short Story Readerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01472245801977188118noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5103318922549160177.post-33936164394019699882009-03-15T10:30:00.000-07:002009-03-15T10:33:12.798-07:00Day 15<span style="font-family: trebuchet ms;">Last night, Friendster finally made it to my list of frequented sites in Foxfire. I'd been wondering if it would ever break through, and I'm surprised it took as long as it did--almost fifteen days of constant visitations. But that just shows how long I'd been ignoring it. How long, I wonder, will it take for the site to disappear from the most-frequented sites once the thirty days is up? Sad, really, that I'm assuming I won't be returning much after the month is over, that I'm already assuming my attempts to rescuscitate its usage will be unsuccessful. But fifteen days have made me a bit weary and pessimistic.</span><br /><br /><span style="font-family: trebuchet ms;">Last night, I ran into a friend who I tried to add as a friend on Friendster. We did not discuss. I don't know if he received my invitation. I suppose I could have asked. But something seemed to tell me that discretion was possibly better. I remember, several years ago, I added someone else. When we ran into each other, he mentioned it--"I hadn't been on Friendster in months," he said, but why not? At that time, Friendster had fallen into disusage among my peers but not to quite the depth it has now. It was a nice joke, to be Friendster friends, with this person I had somehow managed never to add or to be added by. How would it be taken now? Would said friend tell me to add him on Facebook? (We are actually already MySpace buddies.)</span><br /><br /><span style="font-family: trebuchet ms;">Today's attempts ran this way: I contacted one Friendster friend, one acquaintance, attempted to add one acquaintance friend, and actually added a friend based on a friend request. Of the acquaintance I wrote to, he has a lot of Asian women on his connections list as well as a lot of younger women. Some of the younger women are definitely legitimate--some of them are church people I know of through third parties, which makes me wonder if Friendster is perhaps catching on among younger people (these folks would have been, like, teens when Friendster was getting used among my peers), because some of these people have been on in the past week. Really cool! Maybe I've found the active users at last. The Asian connections would lead me to believe either he accepts all comers as friends, or--and I think this more likely--he has been to Asia and knows lots of folks over there. If I'm remembering, he went over there to teach for a year. The appearance on his page of someone who had added me a few months whose legitimacy I questions caused me to go ahead and add her. Hopefully, she's not some Asian robot (but her profile was set to private, so I'm betting not).</span><br /><br /><span style="font-family: trebuchet ms;">The totals, as a result, are now seventeen Friendster friends written, two replies; twelve acquaintances written or added as friends, one reply; five invitations extended, no replies; fifteen strangers written, no replies; two profile views. One added friend, bringing my total to twenty-nine.</span>Short Story Readerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01472245801977188118noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5103318922549160177.post-30252244702804170142009-03-14T17:35:00.000-07:002009-03-14T17:36:44.542-07:00Day 14<span style="font-family: trebuchet ms;">I got a publication rejection slip today. It had been a while. I need one of those once every few weeks to confirm that I still exist, that I'm still alive. If I don't get one every now and then, I begin to think that I exist in some kind of void, that I send words out but only into nothingness--no audience at the other end. I feel like I'm a radio wave that has hit the end of the solar system and is now just out in the ether, wandering around, no one even confirming that I carry nothing worthy of being read by a larger mass of people. But today, I got my confirmation that is so. I feel vindicated. I'd begun to doubt it--I hadn't heard from anyone in about a month or so, it seemed. All this mail and e-mail sent out and ignored, simply deleted or tossed. Or was it?</span><br /><br /><span style="font-family: trebuchet ms;">If it weren't for my one Friendster friend who wrote back three times, I think I'd have begun by now to wonder whether Friendster even worked--if maybe my "messages" were simply going off to some electronic netherworld. That's right--no responses to day. I'm still at twenty-eight friends and two profile views. It's like I'm in some sci-fi film, the last man on earth, and the only person I can get messages from is myself. But I tried again anyway today to break through. Is anyone out there? Today, I wrote to one more Friendster friend and one acquaintance, and I tried to add yet another acquaintance as a friend. Will these messages get through? If a Friendster message is sent out and no one receives it, was there a message at all?</span><br /><br /><span style="font-family: trebuchet ms;">The totals now stand at sixteen Friendster friends written, replies from two; ten acquaintances written or added as friends, one reply; five invitations extended, no replies; fifteen strangers written, no replies; two profile views.</span>Short Story Readerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01472245801977188118noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5103318922549160177.post-55559798762617677082009-03-13T15:43:00.001-07:002009-03-13T15:43:46.752-07:00Day 13<span style="font-family: trebuchet ms;">Facebook came up in conversation at lunch today. A coworker who is enrolled in a long-distance MFA program keeps tabs on others in her school/class via the social networking site. In fact, I could see such sites being quite useful for classes--well, sort of. She was saying how she had really enjoyed the site the first couple of weeks, but now she was having a hard time getting into it. The various games--application add-ons--weren't what they used to be.</span><br /><br /><span style="font-family: trebuchet ms;">Wait? Application add-ons? Yeah, apparently MySpace and Facebook both have a ton, and I'm sure Friendster has its share too, though I haven't gone looking for them. Only in Facebook do they seem so prominent. Folks are constantly inviting me to join this game or that application or this group. To date, I have downloaded on application, and I have yet to actually put it to use. I downloaded it because I had just reconnected with a former roommate (albeit not through Facebook but through a good old online search with a follow-up e-mail). He invited me to be in touch with him on Facebook, and I probably felt a bit like I needed to accept the application to be sociable. And maybe I had a little curiosity about the game as well. Back when we'd roomed together, over a decade ago now, he'd played chess with one friend via e-mail. This was before IM and other things were common obviously, and a very slow way to play chess--they made one move each day. The application seemed similar to that, and sure, I was willing to play long-distance chess. But once I downloaded, I realized I would have to have a long learning curve to whatever this game was, and I simply have never ever gotten around to really trying to practice and play. I don't have time for this. Sure, I write a blog--or two or three--but I don't by and large read them with any regularity. I read largely online journals--that alone is enough to suck up what time I want to spend online. I want to play games in person. I want to Friendster boardgame companions, here, in Athens. So with that in mind, that's what I did today. Will my luck hold?</span><br /><br /><span style="font-family: trebuchet ms;">I have at least managed to get one person to start using Friendster regularly, if only to write to me. A third response from that particular Friendster friend came today. (The news of your friends--that is, what my friends are doing--is sure easier to track on Friendster than on Facebook. That is, my friends are doing nothing, save the one who's writing me!)</span><br /><br /><span style="font-family: trebuchet ms;">Anyway, today's Friendster contacts ran thus: one Friendster friend contacted and two total strangers. Other than the followup message from the one user, the new reply market remains empty. The totals are thus: fifteen Friendster friends written, two replies; eight acquaintances written or added as friends, one reply; five invitations extended, no replies; fifteen strangers written, no replies (if I keep doing this, I am going to run out of friends of friends--there are only 228 apparently); two profile views.</span>Short Story Readerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01472245801977188118noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5103318922549160177.post-67366281671887043682009-03-12T20:44:00.000-07:002009-03-12T20:45:00.312-07:00Day 12<span style="font-family: trebuchet ms;">A search through my hometown back in Southern California reveals an almost entirely Asian set of people. Who are these people? This isn't my hometown. Granted, I know that Pasadena has changed a lot since I left fifteen years ago. Last time I visited, the old Presbyterian Church a few blocks from where I grew up had become a Korean church. I know that when I went to the mall out at Santa Anita, almost everyone there was Asian. But Pasadena, even with the large Asian American population, is still a big giant mix of folks--Hispanics, African Americans, Asians, and us white folk. But whites and blacks are nowhere to be seen on this block of Friendster, and there's only one token Hispanic that I found. Anyway, I didn't write to any of these people--I don't know them. A lot of them seem significantly younger than I am--were these folks even around when Friendster started up? Is Friendster a hip site for young folks and the major problem then not so much that my friends no longer use it but that my friends are too old? If such is the case, then I know where folks will be a year from now. We always copy the young, it seems. And so I'm getting a jump start on my age set. Good for me!</span><br /><br /><span style="font-family: trebuchet ms;">I did get a second response from one of my Friendster friends today, so that's interesting. Basically, she sent me a link that explains why Facebook is for people our age. Sigh. And it is. Facebook is about connecting with people you already know--but forgot about--or so it seems. I also found out that both MySpace and Facebook now offer sections where you can see how friends are connected, similar to what Friendster was doing years ago. But Friendster may still be the only site to show you how you are connected to folks you may not know.</span><br /><br /><span style="font-family: trebuchet ms;">Anyway, today's Friendster contacts ran thus: one Friendster friend contacted and two total strangers (though one is a friend of a friend and one was a deejay I feel connected to because I listened to his voice for years). But other than that followup message from said friend, the new reply market remains empty. The totals are thus ("thus" being my new hip word for the day): fourteen Friendster friends written, two replies; eight acquaintances written or added as friends, one reply; five invitations extended, no replies; thirteen strangers written, no replies; two profile views.</span>Short Story Readerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01472245801977188118noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5103318922549160177.post-53291304371280940332009-03-11T17:35:00.000-07:002009-03-11T17:36:14.544-07:00Day 11<span style="font-family: trebuchet ms;">Today I read a review of a book by one of the guys who started that whole "spontaneous gathering" movement--you know, where a message goes out on the Internet to gather on the corner of Hull and Clayton streets with kazoos at 1:00 p.m. on Sunday, March 15, and a thousand people show up. Okay, so I'm thinking I probably need to read this book. It's about how trends occur in viral culture, or really an analysis of how that affects our overall culture (it's called <span style="font-style: italic;">And Then There's This</span> and is by B. Wasik). You see, if I sent out an e-mail telling folks to gather at 1:00 p.m. on Sunday, March 15, the only person that would show up would likely be me. Maybe I'd get one other person to show if I were lucky. That's it. And we probably would look at each other askance, kazoos hidden, wondering, Is that guy here for the kazoo thing? And it's like this Friendster thing. No one seems to want to follow the trend. No one is coming back. Or maybe I'm wrong. I did get one message last night, one friend returned a Friendster message. Incredible.</span><br /><br /><span style="font-family: trebuchet ms;">This means that today's totals now look like this: thirteen Friendster friends written, two replies; eight acquaintances written or added as friends, one reply; five invitations extended, no replies; eleven strangers written, no replies. Note that the invitation extended was to someone on MySpace who e-mailed me there. Will he take me up on the offer to be one of the cool kids? Doubt it. He sent me something from the high school newspaper I'd written. How embarrassing. I'm guessing my reaction to this blog may be the same two decades from now. Is someone going to archive this and force me to read it again?</span>Short Story Readerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01472245801977188118noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5103318922549160177.post-66702041474336007042009-03-10T18:53:00.000-07:002009-03-10T18:54:41.848-07:00Day 10<span style="font-family: trebuchet ms;">At church, I'm hep with the under fourteen set. Perhaps, this is part of the problem with my appeal to Friendster folks. Maybe, if I were aiming at folks under fourteen, folks would actually talk back--but online friendships with kids seem a wee bit creepy. So I stick with only the adults.</span><br /><br /><span style="font-family: trebuchet ms;">But anyway, one of the things that's got me thinking about the kids is that some of the older ones, the ones turning thirteen and fourteen and going to their first teen dances and uncomfortable about talking to the opposite sex, I've offered plenty of advice to. You know, on how to talk up gals. Most of them don't think I know anything this--yes, even the kids. And maybe I don't. But it does seem to me that if you have trouble coming up with conversation ideas, there are <span style="font-style: italic;">always</span> things you can talk about, things we all have, like our names. So here is the demonstration I gave to the kids about conversation for those having trouble with a topic:</span><br /><br /><span style="font-family: trebuchet ms;">"My name's Jack. What's yours?"</span><br /><br /><span style="font-family: trebuchet ms;">"Priscilla."</span><br /><br /><span style="font-family: trebuchet ms;">"That's a nice name. Where'd you get that?"</span><br /><br /><span style="font-family: trebuchet ms;">"My parents."</span><br /><br /><span style="font-family: trebuchet ms;">"Wow. That's where I got my name too. I feel like, even though we've only been talking for a few seconds, we have so much in common."</span><br /><br /><span style="font-family: trebuchet ms;">This dialogue establishes names and commonalities, which I think are two keys to any relationship. What guy/gal won't want to spend more time with you once he/she realizes how many things you have in common?</span><br /><br /><span style="font-family: trebuchet ms;">Perhaps, I'll try out this strategy at Friendster, albeit in shorter time. Do you think it will work? I'll have to skip to the third line, though, since that we know each other's names will already be a given. Let's see . . .</span><br /><br /><span style="font-family: trebuchet ms;">I tried contacting two complete strangers and one acquaintance from a long time ago today. I also wrote one of my Friendster friends. The first ten days are done. And so far the totals are as such: twelve Friendster friends written, one reply (I'm going to run out of Friendster friends to write soon); seven acquaintances written or added as friends, one reply; four invitations extended, no replies; eleven strangers written, no replies. If one assumes responses will increase exponentially, then the next ten days should include four--that's right, four!--replies. And then eight, and sixteen, and thirty-two. It'll only be a decade or two before the whole world is back on Friendster.</span>Short Story Readerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01472245801977188118noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5103318922549160177.post-48280975642260719872009-03-09T17:31:00.001-07:002009-03-09T17:31:41.437-07:00Day 9<span style="font-family: trebuchet ms;">One in eight. That's the number of spouses who met online, at least according to one statistic that I read. I wonder how many of those met through Friendster? I know of at least--a story I read about online. At the rate I'm going, however, that will not be me. Not that I'm expecting love from Friendster. I'm expecting maybe some friends. Maybe?</span><br /><br /><span style="font-family: trebuchet ms;">Looking over the people I know who met their significant others online, I find that in truth quite a few of them have. One former coworker. One grad student friend. Several people from church (people of my faith are few and far between, so online is probably more likely than for the general population, though even among those of my faith I seem to be popular mostly for my messages, if/when I'm popular at all, not for anything beyond that--admittedly I guess there have been a few women who might have taken me had I not gone shy). But certainly, among some of these online romantics, there's a certain hesitancy to admit that one met online. This was the case with this grad student friend, who had created some kind of elaborate story as cover. He admitted the truth to me, though. How many people know the truth? Probably quite a few if he has admitted it to anyone beyond me. As for me, no one who doesn't already know me generally responds to messages, so I really don't know how these online romances even start.</span><br /><br /><span style="font-family: trebuchet ms;">In keeping with that are the totals for today--zero responses, though I did at least get one more profile view--this from a person I know (though haven't seen in probably four years), who didn't even bother writing back! Sigh. Today, I wrote on Friendster friend, invited a new person to Friendster, and wrote one friend of a friend who sounded totally cool (but whose picture is a stick figure, so I really don't know how this person is). This brings the totals to as follows: eleven 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; four invitations extended, no replies; nine strangers written, no replies. Sigh. I'm getting tired here folks. Help me out.</span>Short Story Readerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01472245801977188118noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5103318922549160177.post-37972368939371360252009-03-08T09:34:00.000-07:002009-03-08T09:35:29.203-07:00Day 8<span style="font-family: trebuchet ms;">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).</span><br /><br /><span style="font-family: trebuchet ms;">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.</span><br /><br /><span style="font-family: trebuchet ms;">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.</span><br /><br /><span style="font-family: trebuchet ms;">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.</span><br /><br /><span style="font-family: trebuchet ms;">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.</span>Short Story Readerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01472245801977188118noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5103318922549160177.post-45336921348440313252009-03-07T19:34:00.001-08:002009-03-07T19:34:38.791-08:00Day 7<span style="font-family: trebuchet ms;">So yesterday, when I was looking around on Friendster, I discovered this great new feature called "Friends of Friends." I'd thought the whole connected-to-you feature had been dismantled, but it still works up to two degrees of separation (used to work to four degrees), so there is, as it turns out, still something unique about Friendster to love that the other sites haven't picked up on (and probably can't for patent reasons). But the "Friends of Friends" page is something else beyond that. It's a page devoted completely to presenting you with a list of people who know your friends, outside of your friends profiles. A great means to go around introducing yourself to relative strangers. Hey, I know blank, how do you know blank? Of course, it's Friendster, so probably these people don't know blank either--blank and they met at some party six years ago, had a brief chat, realized they were both on Friendster and Friendstered each other and have never talked to one another since. Yeah, I have a few Friendster friends like that--and MySpace friends and Facebook friends (okay, in the latter case, it's mostly people I went to high school with who suddenly pop up, add me, and then never say a word).</span><br /><br /><span style="font-family: trebuchet ms;">That is the one thing I can say for Facebook. More than MySpace, more than Friendster, people who previously didn't use social networking sites, or at least people who didn't acknowledge that they went to my little tiny now defunct religious high school, are using Facebook and adding friends left and right. Part of me is glad that there are now ways to track down what happened to Igmar or Sal, but part of me also kind of likes having disappeared and sort of is uncomfortable with people who I haven't seen in twenty years suddenly knowing anything I post. It's, well, sort of weird. (And like, having complete strangers reading my blog is any more normal? I know, my feelings don't make much sense.)</span><br /><br /><span style="font-family: trebuchet ms;">Maybe my discomfort has to do with myself and where I am in my own life. Single. Still single. Probably permanently so.</span><br /><br /><span style="font-family: trebuchet ms;">I know that's one reason why one of my friends doesn't join any of these sites. She's still working on her doctorate. She's embarrassed by how long it's taking. She doesn't want people from grad school looking her up and seeing her. She doesn't want to be part of conversations like this: "Oh, hey, I remember you--we went to school together. I'm teaching at Dartmouth and wrapping up my first book for Penn State University Press. What are you doing?" "I'm still working on getting that degree you finished five years ago."</span><br /><br /><span style="font-family: trebuchet ms;">And I guess that's sort of how I feel. "Yeah, you remember that guy in school who was always really good at homework but not at much else? Yeah, that's me still. I'm still that guy. I work, do a pretty good job at that. That's about it. Maybe I'll lose my job in this crisis, and then I'll have nothing at all to show for my forty years on this globe and I'll be a complete loser." Meanwhile, Ingmar has had five children, written a book on AIDS in the Arctic, and last month traveled to Argentina to see whether she was going to take that position UNICEF had offered her in which she was going to help coordinate an orphan education program (turned them down--Obama wanted her to head up a program like that for Des Moines, which was closer to family and her hubby Roger's home). Oh, and did I mention she's the subject of a documentary to be shown on HBO next month?</span><br /><br /><span style="font-family: trebuchet ms;">This is unreasonable, I realize. People's lives are just that, lives. Their lives likely seem just as humdrum to them as mine does to me. I may not feel successful, but I'm likely not any less successful than the vast majority of people in this country. I'm just part of the crowd. Successful in some things, not in others. Like a regular human being.</span><br /><br /><span style="font-family: trebuchet ms;">I remember a scene in Frederick Exley's Notes of a Fan. It was pretty spectacular. It's a moment when he realizes that he's never going to be one of the football players, never going to be out on the field, never going to be one of the heroes. There's only forty-eight of those (or sixty-two or whatever number is on a team--and only eleven on the field at a time). Most people are just fans. Most are just people in the stands. Most aren't heroes. Most just watch and cheer. And that's what virtually everyone gets to recognize one day, unless you're one of the heroes. (Even then, hero for whom and for what? I couldn't name more than a handful of active football players. And if I were playing football, I don't think I'd feel like I was doing anything particularly world changing or important. It would likely be just a job--albeit one I enjoyed. If I actually enjoyed playing football, that is--personally, I prefer to have bones.)</span><br /><br /><span style="font-family: trebuchet ms;">So today, I took it easy. I didn't get home until relatively late in the evening, and I have a few other things I want to do, so I only mailed three people: a Friendster friend, an acquaintance, and a total stranger. I received nothing in reply, bringing the totals to as follows: nine Friendster friends written, one reply (I'm going to run out of Friendster friends to write soon); five acquaintances written or added as friends, one reply; three invitations extended, no replies; six strangers written, no replies. I should also note that I've had one--that's right, one--profile view since I started this whole thing. Come on folks, where are you?</span>Short Story Readerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01472245801977188118noreply@blogger.com0