Friendster

Jus how big is this friendster thing getting?? Seems like everybody I know is getting on it one way or another and I've had ex-classmates whom I've never heard from since graduation adding me to their friends list. Good god! How far is this getting? Almost it seems like some people are just adding friends for the sake of upping the no of friends on their list. [to all my friends on friendster, this is totally not meant as a personal attack on any of you all, but after I've surfed around, some of the profiles listed over 300-500 friends! How the heck can anyone know that many people??]

The principle between friendster, as I see it, is sorta the same as the online dating services. You get to surf people's profiles, get to know more people, and the added advantage is that these people know your friends, so the hazard of meeting some 50yr old paedophile online is greatly reduced. You also get to catch up on people you haven't seen for ages, if you find them on the server and add them as friends.

But the hazards also abound. Imagine a guy emailing me, cos he finds me on friendster and he's the friend of a friend of a friend of a.... you get the idea.... past a certain point, the connection gets way too weak... and you won't know if he's some rapist-serialkiller-paedophilic-pervert.

Also I don't think this thing solves the basic problem in socialising. It gives you a chance to know people, but ultimately, it's whether you actually wanna make that move of sending the message to this guy from washington who knows a friend of a friend of a friend of yours. [yes, in my personal network, there actually is such a guy]. And no, I won't do it, cos there is no freakin' way I can know, and really know what a person is like online, and there is no substitute for the real deal in this case. Probably even if I do work up the nerve to send an email, I won't even meet the guy till much, much, much after-many-credibility-checks later. And when I'm certain he's no pervert. :p