Let the orkut backlash begin. Why send all the
SNS
bashing to friendster only? Let's share a litte of that anti-love with Orkut. (the
site, not the guy)
I'll start it off…
I received an email from one of my "haven't met" friends. (Keep in mind that most of my "haven't met" friends asked me
for an invitation as a result of this
post, where I said I would invite
anyone to orkut, as a rebellion against their invite only policy. Don't believe me, look at this
screenshot. ) Anyways, here's the
email:
yeah…i'm doing that…i need more 'REAL' FRIENDS in my list. I've always accepted almost all friendship requests…but this account is totally out of my control…furthermore i reached the max friends limit so IF you think you are one of my friends…pls add this new account (I removed the url). If you are one of those people i've never talked to …pls disregard my msg :) C ya K~
I say Good Luck, Dear. Creating a new account isn't gonna solve the problem. Not sure what she means by: "this account is totally out of my control", but I assume it has something to do with the amazing amount of unsolicited email/messages in orkut inboxes, some are calling social network spam or SNAM. Here's an example:
from: Ric to: friends of friends subject: Festa Open Bar da Anhembi na Spirit 19/06 message: E ai pessoal vamu nessa baladinha? tava dando uma conferida no ObaOba! ( http://urlremoved) e Acho que é a melhor opção da Vila Olímpia para esse sábado. Open Bar a noite toda com Skolbeats, Smirnoff, Jurupinga, água e refri e no Camarote rola até um Red Label. O Flyer ta na net: http://urlremoved A Spirit fica (removed)! []'s Ricardo
Here's a screenshot of my orkut inbox:
Notice the 268 messages I've received (many in Brazilian) since 6/25/2004. That was the last time I deleted them without reading any of them. Not only is my orkut inbox full of useless messages from somewhere between 1 and 733491 people that I barely know, (I am connected to 733491 people through 96 friends) orkut also allows people to send email to people's email inboxes. Here is one I received at my hotmail address:
Class starts.. at 0800 am.. dont be late.. or you're knuckles will feel very..very..painful. Nicole has invited you to join 'Dutch 101'. To view 'Dutch 101', click on the link below:: http://urlremoved
In my not so humble opinion, the orkut message system is useless. In fact, it is nothing short of a SNAM/SPAM facilitator. I do believe SNSs are the ideal systems (besides blogging) to meet and record new relationships (of the professional, dating, or whatever kind). But, they are still far off in attempting to manage communication and collaboration between people.
Evite and linkedin being the only exceptions that I use. Are there any other YASN systems that help you communicate and collaborate? I hope so. And please explain why.
1. I don't really use Multiply to meet people. I use it almost exclusively to communicate with my friends and family by posting photo albums, journal entries, reviews, etc. Everytime I post something, the people who should be able to see it (e.g., my entire network, or just my family, etc.) get a notifiation message on their Message board. It's actually been really cool to see the people from different parts of my life interacting when commenting on something I've posted.
My network on Multiply, through 81 contacts, is just under 1900 people. While this won't win me any "who has more friends!" contests, it makes Multiply a much more useful tool by having my network be something that's actually meaningful. The fact that they use real relationships (mother, sister, fraternity brother, co-worker, etc.) also makes the network more credible than having everyone be a generic "friend". Have I known you for 10 years, or did we just meat online yeserday?
Posted at 8:20PM on Dec 18th 2005 by Paul