Paul Watson: Software may let you have 3000 friends but your brain doesn’t.
A few years ago, when Orkut was new and hot, Rael Dornfest demonstrated the standare social software friend-confirmation protocol by walking up to people, pushing his face into theirs and saying “YOU ARE MY FRIEND! YES OR NO!” Nailed it, that.
David Wong explains this: Inside the Monkeysphere.
Scandinavians – maybe all Europeans – first time travelling in the US always have a hard time with the greeting formula “Hi, how are you?”, “Fine, how are you” – because the question can only be used as a sincere statement of interest in their home country. The basic approachability built into the formula therefore seems extremely invasive and/or shallow.
The thing is, however, approachability works. Makes for more interesting conferences for example. “Default on” in terms of accepting a stranger walking up to you just makes things more interesting.
Haven’t we learned about now that “is your friend” is just the same thing for online social networks?
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