Okay, so I signed up with Friendster a while back. Lynne and Aaron were the ones who got me into it. As of now, I'm directly connected to nine friends, and I'm directly or indirectly connected to a total of 12,179 people. And so are you, if you're connected to Lynne or Aaron or any of their friends or friends- of-friends. The toplogy of this is somewhat interesting. I mean, it's easy to imagine how a cluster of a few people, like the handful of local Grexers and sf community folks who got me into this, could gradually spread out around the edges. This kind of growth would be experienced as a gain of a small percentage of new contacts each few days or week, say. Along the way, an expanding network is going to collide with other similarly expanding networks and automatically merge. From any individual's perspective, this would be a sudden upsurge, like a doubling of the size of one's network overnight. A single individual who happens to know two people who belong to different clusters can singlehandedly merge those clusters, at least in a mathematical sense. But if there are two large and tightly interconnected clusters connected by a single individual, their status as a "one single" network is very tenuous. If that one account gets deleted, does that separate the two clusters, causing all their members to see their network size drop in half? I think about these issues because my web site has a somewhat analogous problem: political families. Thousands of the politicians in my database are connected by blood, marriage, or adoption. Every cluster of three or more is listed here: http://politicalgraveyard.com/families/index.html (there are 410 clusters; the largest one has 130 members). The clusters are determined (and even named) automatically: the program, in effect, follows each link and connects up everyone it finds into one "family". By this logic, Mario Cuomo is listed on the Kennedy family page, because his son married RFK's daughter. I do include a disclaimer that says: "Some families traditionally (and perhaps properly) considered separately are joined together here if linked by marriage or otherwise." The largest cluster, Livingston-Harrison-Lee, includes such folks as George Washington, Thomas Jefferson, John Jay, James Madison, John Marshall, William Henry Harrison, Zachary Taylor, and Jefferson Davis -- I guess it illustrates what a small world was the aristocracy of early America. But I'm not really interested in seeing the big clusters merge with each other, likely as that is as I accumulate more data. Who really wants to plow through an inventory of thousands of people in one enormous cluster?70 responses total.
I'm afraid of Friendster. Someone sent me an invitation to sign up, and I still have no idea what it is: Nor do I even want to know at this point. Signed, I hate Friendster.
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What's Friendster do?
Don't ask.
I lost interest in Friendster.
It's a six-degrees-of-separation type website. And it always seemed like the bad-idea factor outweighed the possibly-fun factor.
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I think it is kind of fun. It is fun to see who knows whom and such. What really interests me is how I am sometimes connected to people by multiple, seemingly unrelated, paths. It is kind of cool.
Oh yeah, and I really think it is cool that my family is kind of one of the political family groups. http://politicalgraveyard.com/families/4499.html Larry, you rock.
I'm on it, but only just recently -- (carson) exerted peer pressure upon me.
I suppose now that I've been invited to join that it can't hurt -- they already have my email. :(
My email has been out in public for so long, and in so many places, that it would be silly to try to hide it now. I do get 2,000-some spam per month (not even counting the Nigerian frauds), but I have a spam filter to sort it out for me. I have noticed that Friendster won't let you visit the profile pages of people more than about 4 links away. Does that mean that 12,000-some individuals are within four links of me? Hard to believe...
Friendster sucks.
I agree fully.
(Larry's correct in noticing that Friendster only connects within four degrees of separation. if one begins from the premise that we are all connected within six degrees, it's not hard to imagine that a fairly large number of people are connected within four. to take Larry for example, if all of his nine friends have nine friends who all have nine friends, et cetera, then he's connected to 7380 people. that doesn't account for overlapping [i.e., Aaron and Lynne are friends with each other, and both friends of Larry]... and it also doesn't account for what I like to call "mega-friends.") (let's take David Haselhoff, for instance. Mr. Haselhoff, late of _Baywatch_, has made many fans through his long and illustrious acting career, not to mention his popularity as an overseas singing sensation. he currently lists a whopping 348 friends. I can only imagine the size of his personal network, and the closer someone is to him, the larger their own personal network will be.) (there are probably analogous figures in political history [my best guess: many of the Kennedys] who, by virtue of being personally connected to many people, greatly expand the network of those who make their acquaintance.)
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(he's in mine, too. so's God. twice, at least.)
hmm. It seems like Erdos should get a mention here. . . .
I dont think David Hasselhoff is in my network. But then, he might be. I have something like 50,000 people in my network which seems like a whole lot.
I did notice that God was in my network but I figured if God wanted to be my friend, he would ask me so I never bothered to ask him to be his friend ;)
re 18: Heh.
Actually, there are a few Friendster-type sites out there for mathematicians, including at least one for finding Erdos numbers. My uncle is a mathematician, and he sends us links to this sort of thing from time to time. Try http://www.acs.oakland.edu/~grossman/erdoshp.html
My Erdos number is 3.
I assume mine is a sideways figure eight. (I've never published a paper, much less collaborated on one.)
I just joined, because I'm really anti-social and one of my friends thought I needed it. I have no real basis upon which to judge the network; it's just another 'meet people' site. If you're into those, you'll probably like it more than some other sites; if not, you won't.
Heh. I havent actually met anyone from friendster. I guess putting "crazy psycho bitch" in my bio is a turnoff or something ;)
I'm connected in through Sean Hastings.
Ah yes, Sean Hastings and a 100 of his *closest* friends. HAW!
When you've been in the variety of lines of work he has, you wind up with a lot of acquaintences. In any case, I went to school with him and his sister.
REALLY?!? You know his *sister*? That's impressive. ;)
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He used to be on Mnet
i know sean hastings. didnt we go to school with him lynne?
I dont remember
*rolls eyes* ;)
I don't get it. What's your point?
I guess I was having an "in joke" with myself. If there is such a thing as a Friendster Slut, then Sean Hastings is it. I guess I find a little humor in that. That was my only point. :)
(if he's on par with someone like "David Haselhoff", then I prefer to think of them as "facilitators".) ;)
I heard a radio program this weekend that did a story about Friendster. They called those folks "spokes" because they were like the center of a huge wheel. Of course, they were talking about people with 300+ "friends" so I guess when it comes to being Friendster Whore, Mr. Hastings is definately small time. I dont think I could get 300 people even if everyone I know were to join. Maybe if everyone who has ever heard of me were to join, I could get up to 300. heh. ;) I guess I will never be a "spoke"
I signed up to Friendster a while back cus carson said to and I couldn't figure out what the fuck I had to do next so I said fuck it hehe :) What's my point? There is no point.
Ditto.
I signed up and forgot my user id and password. I'm not too interested in it.
Me neither. The site design sucks.
Cross-dressing scum.
You're just jealous that you're too damn inhibited to try it.
(the site design DOES suck.)
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Yeah that's probably what made me not want to go back and try it, the site design sucked and it was slow.. oh yeah and I forgot my login and password. Thanks alot carson!
I have one also, but there's really nothing to keep me inclined to maintain it. There are much more interesting ways to build a network of online "friends".
I havent actually met anyone on Friendster. I have run across some people I have lost touch with though. Mostly I find it interesting to see all the connections people have
My favorite part about friendster is Slynne's testimony. I hate the site design. That's all I have to say.
I dont mind the site design so much but I wonder how it would work if it were combined with a blog site or something.
The problem is not the design so much as the slowness.
Yeah. I dont like the slowness.
Out of boredness this afternoon, I now have a Friendster account. I suppose I should add some friends at some point.
I did the same, but I don't really know anyone, so I doubt it it will cure my board em.
can't you just click on 'friends'?
Nay, I ain't that bright.
re 0 HEY D00D APROVE ME AS YOUR FRIENDSTER FRIEND> PLZ
YEAH DO IT POLYGON/LAWRENCE KESTENBAUM
Re 69. Who are you?
I believe you meant "59".
(I've met some people on Friendster. it's actually been pretty cool and reminds me of my early years on Grex. strangely enough, my PN seems to have levelled off above the half-million mark, which is pretty cool, if wholly implausible. Larry's within two degrees of me, so I'm probably skewing his PN too.)
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tod was the second person to add me as a dfriend.
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You're first on my list, baby.
re 66 D0od Ernald invited me. re 67 ADD ME
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who is that?
You have several choices: