Losing a friend is less fun

When I first added Friend Connect to my blog it was fun watching as people (slowly) became "members" of my blog, and how some of them became my "friends". The number of people in both those groups is rather small, but the latter (friends) group is really, really small - so small in fact, that when my favorite blogger "un-friended" me (ouch!), I noticed pretty fast. Was it something I said? Nah - can't be - as I haven't said much of anything here in too long... Aha! That's it! What could be more offensive to a prolific blogger than a blog which sits there in silence? I get it.
Ok - you've made your point. I promise to post more. Can we be friends again? Oh, this is tricky... you have so many Friend Connect members on your site (2858... er... 2859..) that I can't find you to formally ask you back. hmmm... oh wait - there you are! You are still on my blog's easy to browse (read: short) members list... whew... Tricky business this friends 2.0 stuff.

Friend Connect now open

I had many people ask me about Friend Connect when I put it on my blog as part of an early beta, so I figured I should post quickly about it again... While it's been pretty cool up until now, there were only a few blogs which had it - so a bit less "connecting" on my blog. But now, anyone can add it to their site.

If you haven't noticed it, or don't even know what I'm talking about - it's those to little windows (gadgets) on the right side of this blog. The first shows people who "follow" my blog, and the second provides a place to quickly comment on the blog or on a specific post (comments on a specific post page are separate from other comments).

Check out the Friend Connect blog post to get the accurate info.

A Friend is a Friend - but...

The lyrics of this lesser-known, but great Pete Townshend song keep running through my head practically every time I use any web site with any form of "friends" community... (doesn't hurt that it's on my ipod at the moment)...

"When eyes met in silence - a pact can be made"

I visit facebook after a few weeks' absence, and see that I have 6 or 7 new friend invitations. Of course, human nature strikes first - and I think "yay!" - and then I see that I only actually really know a couple of them... so I quickly accept those and then click on the names of the others to jog my memory - clearly I must know them, but just don't remember... let's see

"A lifelong alliance - that won't be betrayed"

This first person's name actually sounds familiar, and we do apparently have 3 friends in common - hmmm... two of whom are popular bloggers with, in one case, 5,000 friends (I think I just saw the facebook friends limit)... so now I notice that this 'friend to be' of mine has 2,300 friends himself...

"A friend is a friend - nothing can change that"

...and so, clearly this person really is depending on my friendship ;) - so I accept (for the first time, actually giving in to becoming friends with someone blindly - unless my memory is really failing me here and I actually was roommates with this person in college or something). Hey - a new "friend" - what could be bad about that.

"Arguments, squabbles - can't break the contract..."

Then I look at the profiles of some of these other friend invitations - hey, they're pretty friendful too... 1800, 1300, etc... is that good or bad? Clearly some of those hundreds of electronic friends are actually friends - but can they tell the difference anymore?

"...that each of you makes - to the death to the end"

And now I feel compelled to look at my own profile. 131 friends. huh. Is that too few? or is it too many? I remember a while back, when I stumbled upon my proile page on YouTube, it boldly announced back to me in something close to a 24-pt font,
"You Have No Friends".

I stared at that message for a while and really contemplated it with an ever so slightly broken spirit (drama: mine)... thinking about my friends... Luckily, I was able to conjure up a few real friends at the time and closed that window with a slightly higher velocity, middle-finger click. Interesting that when I went back to find that message again (wish I got a screen shot), it was no longer there... even though I still have no YouTube Friends...

"Deliver your future - into the hands of your friend"

So, I'm sure, as I know you are too, that online friends are a mix of offline-online friends and online-only friends... but I'm also wondering to what extent the simple peer pressure to have lots of friends has driven the activity - the compulsion - to connect to people online. Clearly there is monetary motivation for bloggers and recruiters. Fair. But for the rest of us - once you go beyond your "real" friends and acquaintances - and start inviting - or accepting - online friends... what's the motivation? Is the usefulness of that action becoming diluted - and will we reverse the process eventually - where everyone online is everyone's friend - and then the compulsive action can be to trim down the list to the smallest possible list of true friends.

In the real world - when my laptop is off - YouTube(0) isn't right, but it is closer to the truth than Facebook(131)... Being a good friend to a dozen or so people is plenty if they really are friends.

"A friend is a Friend - nothing can change that" - Pete Townshend