I feel kind of pathetic for really wanting a “social networking” site to work for me. I feel old, like it is just not meant for someone of my generation.  I think it started when I began working alone.  I just have a big need for social connection that has been at least partially filled through school or work in the past that is now gone.

First I joined friendster.  When frienster first started, they had these really cool charts which would show you all of your connections to a specific person. I thought that this was so cool, like 6 degrees of seperation in actuality!  Unfortunately, they removed that function at some point.  They also removed a filter so that you could find people who are within your friends network. For example, if I were travelling to Atlanta, I could search people within 2 degrees of seperation people living in Atlanta. That was the most useful function of the site and it is now gone.  I have 47 friendsters.

Next I joined tribe.net.  I feel that tribe has been the most successful for me because it is so based around discussion boards.  Although most of the folks that post on the boards that I am on are not my friends, I do get something out of the boards.  Probably NOT as much as I put in, but something.  I’ve even thought of a discussion board on tribe that I would like to start and probably will.  The thing that I don’t like about tribe is that a lot of people are willing to put anyone as their friend.  There are a few people that have thousands of friends, this screws up the whole idea of seeing how you are connected.  Now, I recognize those names and just ignore them. I have 35 people in my own personal tribe.

Next I joined myspace. It seems more active here with people that I actually know, which is nice, but overall fewer people that I know seem to use it. So far, all that has really worked here is seeing photos or videos and occassional announcements. I have enjoyed reading blogs that are here and warming up with blogging in order to start my own!  Sadly, I only have 21 myspace friends (and that includes Tom!)

Jeff and I had some people over for dinner about a week ago.  One of our guests was this really cool anarchist intellectual guy who was raving about facebook.  So, I joined there.  It is definitely a cooler interface than myspace, but still isnt’ giving me what I am looking for. So far, I only have 16 friends there, most of who don’t seem to be active and most of who aren’t really actively in my life right now.

So what do I want?  I really wish that everyone that I knew would pick one and use it.  The catch is that it would have to be the same one.   I pretty much don’t go on friendster anymore and probably won’t stick around on facebook. Once I start blogging on my own, I will probably bag out of here, so I guess that leaves me with tribe.  My next step is determining whether what I get out of it is enough to keep me there. My friend Amanda was on an “email diet”, I think it may be time for me to do the same…maybe I can just ration my time on the one site that will be left…