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06 February 2004
five degrees of orkut
at the invitation of a couple of friends, I set up a profile of myself on orkut, Google's free-form Friendster-like thing. social software is the coming wave, afterall.
another friend wrote a WebObjects framework that backs a number of other "community" sites, so I've beta-tested a few of his, plus scoped out the competition, including Ryze, LinkedIn, yadda, yadda. since I'm not looking for a date, nor a job in marketing, I've never found a compelling reason to go back once I've grokked the interface.
orkut might be different. at least that's what people tell me. it doesn't impose any particular structure on you. and it doesn't constantly try to sell you things. (whew!) and the interface is reasonable, though not sparkling.
so, I linked up with five (5) friends on orkut. I'm now connected to 40,852 people. I looked through the list. looks like I have some well connected friends. but I already knew that. I'm guessing 40,752 of those people I've never heard of and they've never heard of me. now what?
orkut keeps asking me to Grow [my] network now! I'm at nearly 41,000 with five friends. how big do I want my network to get? again, I ask you, now what?
still, my "Today's fortune" says that I have an important new business development shaping up. hmmm....