Late to the party. What are we celebrating again?
I've read a bit of the vast outpouring of posts in the blogosphere about Orkut, Google's new (and "still in beta") social-networking software system. I'd never taken the dive into Friendster, Tribe or any of the other vaguely or not-so-vaguely similar systems out there. So when I received an invitation from a long-time online correspondent to join Orkut and take a look, I thought, hey, why not? See what all the fuss is about.
So I signed up and I'm still trying to figure out what all the fuss is about.
Orkut signs you up, lets you post as little or as much info about yourself as you feel comfortable providing, and then opens the door for you to cross-link yourself with anyone else on its network who you might consider a friend, assuming the feeling is reciprocated. The end result is a sort of six-degrees-of-separation chart, a digital map that should let you explore "who's friends with my friends."
As many observers have already pointed out (see Dave Weinberger's critique here), this approach has its weaknesses and limitations. There's a forced, binary choice in the "friend/not friend" classification, when in real life we all have a lot of "sort of" friends. The connections the service elucidates are really more typically acquaintances and not close friends, anyway.
The larger question for me is, why take the time? I've already got a pile of contacts in my address book for people who are genuine friends. This blog has a loose network of people it links to and people who link to it. Assuming one is not in the market specifically for dating and mating -- which creates its own powerful motivations -- then Orkut seems to exist pretty much as a self-referential proof-of-concept.
I think I'm supposed to be interested in it because social software is hot right now and people are generally aware that software which connects people is a Good Thing. But where Meetup has the specific purpose of coordinating real-time and real-space events, where blogs have the specific purpose of allowing individuals to publish news and ideas to the whole Net, where venerable online environments like The Well have long had the specific purpose of engendering group conversation, Orkut seems strictly omphaloskeptic: I just don't see how it reaches outside the framework of the relationships it traces to accomplish anything once it makes those relationships explicit.
Maybe I just haven't delved deep enough into the phenomenon. This reaction is based on one evening's exploration of the service, so if I'm missing something -- obvious or subtle -- tell me, please!
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