February 2, 2004
Judith Meskill on Social Networks
Today in Wired News, Leander Kahney has a story -- Social Nets Not Making Friends -- in which he talks about: an SNS backlash brewing; Jason Kottke's parody job listing on craiglist.org; and the fact that the social networking service field has "ballooned to include about 20 different services."Posted by Stuart, February 2, 2004 4:40 PMWell Leander, by my count, there are more than 100 social networking services that I have been observing -- cruising past my virtual radar gun -- in the past few months. I have been tracking this burgeoning growth of services aspiring to help discover and connect my friends, potential partners, business cohorts, and various levels of acquaintances -- and I have this scary feeling that I am only carving shavings off of the tip of an iceberg with this list.
Here is a copy of my accounting -- replete with links -- of this daunting deluge of SNSs: (Caveat: If you feel my accounting is 'flawed,' and would like to be removed from this list, please leave me a comment and I will gladly remove you - there are also a few 'online community' services included here that I track -- not a perfect list [-;)
Affinity Engines, Amigos.com, AsiaFriendFinder, Backwash, Backwash for Pets, BuddyBridge, BuddyZoo, Buzznet, Chia Friend, Classmates.com, Community Zero, Company of Friends, The Conneck, Contact Network, Corporate Alumni, del.icio.us, Delphi Forums, Dogster, Dude Check This Out!, easeek, ecademy, eConozco.com, eFriendsnet, 8minuteDating, Eliyon, enCentra, EntreMate, Eurekster!, everyonesconnected, Evite, First Tuesday, FriendFan.com, FriendFinder, Friendity, Friend Surfer, Friends Reunited, Friendster, Friendzy, Funchain.com, GermanFriendFinder, Globe Alive, GoingProfessional, gradFinder, Growth Company, HeiYou, HelloWorld, hipster, Huminity, I'm Not From Here, IndianFriendFinder, InterAction, ItsNotWhatYouKnow, KnowMates, LianQu, LinkedIn, Living Directory, Love.com, The Lunch Club NYC, Match.com, matcheroo, Mediabistro, MeetUp, MixerMixer, Monster Networking, mrNeighborhood, MyEMatch, NetMiner, Netmodular Community, Netparty, Netplaya Burning Man Community, Networking For Professionals, Nerve, Online Business Networking Resource, The Opinion Exchange, orkut, PalJunction, Passion.com, peeps nation, PowerMingle, qpengyou, RateOrDate, RealContacts, RedDate.com, ReferNet, RepCheck, Ringo, Ryze, Salesforce.com, SeniorFriendFinder, Shortcut, Silicon Valley Pipeline, Small World Project, Social Circles, Social Grid, SocialTree, Sona, The Spark, Spoke Software, StumbleUpon, Sullivan Executive Networking Community, Talk City, TENG, There, Tickle by Emode, Tribe.net, uDate.com, UUFriends, Visible Path, Wallop, WhizSpark, WisdomBuilder, WiW, WorldShine, YeeYoo, YOYO, Zdarmanet, and Zerodegrees. Cynthia Typaldos has an excellent post (from September 14, 2003) and database -- that she started but has turned over to all interested parties to maintain -- on Social Networking Sites and Software with perceived focus.
