Where’s the love, baby?

In “Introducing Chaos to Social Software”:http://www.docuverse.com/blog/donpark/2003/05/26.html#a530 a request for a LinkedIn connection from a stranger prompts Don Park to speculate about how “social networks” like LinkedIn would benefit from ways to make new connections “lazily”. 

These systems seem like great ideas, but like Don, I’ve found that it takes a degree of effort I’m not likely to make to really benefit from them.  I signed up for “Friendster” awhile back, and after a half-hearted cruise through my address book, managed to get four people to sign up in my network.  I guess they’re not any more gregarious than I am, since they haven’t signed anyone else up.  Since browbeating people I’ve already sent invitations to feels a little bit too much like trying to peddle mlm distributorships, my “social networking” efforts are pretty much at a standstill.

So, until folks like Don, and aggressive networkers like “Marc Canter”:http://blogs.it/0100198/ (on whose site I found the link to Don’s article) work out some sort of automagic system to drag the rest of us introverts into the social network revolution, the best idea I can come up with is to park an invitation here. 

If you’re another person who’s not had much luck (or not tried) these things - or anyone else, here’s an “Open Invitation”:http://www.friendster.com/join.jsp?invite=118623 to link to me at Friendster.  Who knows, maybe we’ll actually form a huge tightly knit community of introverts… (what’s wrong with _that_ picture?)

It’s free, it’s hygenic, and it takes about ten minutes of your time. 

What do you have to lose?