05 AUG 2013 by ideonexus

 The Fakester Genocide and Revolution

When Friendster eliminated the “most popular” feature in May 2003, they also deleted both Burning Man and Ali G, each of whom had more than 10,000 friends. This was the start of a Whack-A-Mole–style purge of Fakesters, in which Fakesters and Friendster competed for dominance. Fakester farms were created and Fakester owners would duplicate their Fakesters for rein- sertion. In late June, a group of Fakesters gathered on the Friendster bul- letin board (and later in a Yahoo Group) to begi...
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An interesting and obscure bit of Social Networking history.

05 AUG 2013 by ideonexus

 Social Networks "Flatten" Social Structures

Visibility has its cost; in order to make broader social networks vis- ible, Friendster flattens those networks, collapsing relationship types and contexts into the ubiquitous “Friend.” More problematically, Friendster does not provide ways of mapping or interpreting the contextual cues and social structural boundaries that help people manage their social worlds. Physi- cal distance, to abstract from the obvious, is not just an obstacle to build- ing social relations but is also the dimen...
  1  notes

They create a new form of interaction, where people do not know the rules; therefore, they resort to experimentation to learn how to interact.