19.10.03

Insights: Use of Computer/Social Networking

Social networking systems promise ease and deliver irritability, by Jerry Michalski

From Ryze and LinkedIn to Tribe.net and Friendster, social-networking Web sites are all the rage. I count at least 18 active social-networking services today, plus several that have vanished or morphed (SixDegrees, for example, one of the earliest such services, is now being relaunched as an upscale-dating site.) They are sprouting so quickly they practically constitute a new Internet boomlet of non-revenue-generating startups.
To these offers you might add similar relationship-building and -mining software, such as dating services (Match.com, SocialNet); webs of trust (Advogato); reputation systems (Slashdot Karma, eBay Ratings); nifty experiments (Friend of a Friend project); and ways to mine all the above through analytic social-network, or 'X ray,' technology (Valdis Krebs's Inflow). "

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