Friendster and Publicly Articulated Social Networking

Many social applications have social networking embedded both implicitly and explicitly in their design. Through features such as Buddylists and Blogrolls, developers and users have recognized the value of social networks.Recently, this implicit networking has evolved into explicit effort as entrepreneurs seek to capitalize on the social networking theory. Although explicit social networking sites have existed for years (SixDegrees.com), recent commercial interest has resulted in the emergence of multiple new sites dedicated to helping people capitalize on their social networks for jobs (Ryze.com, LinkedIn.com), dating (Friendster.com), recommendations and listings (Tribe.net). While all of these sites are valuable in this domain, Friendster’s popularity, press coverage, and diverse usage make it an ideal candidate for studying the value and implications of this phenomenon on the HCI community. In this paper, I present portions of my ethnographic work on Friendster in order to consider the tensions that emerge between the architect and the site’s population. In particular, I emphasize how users have repurposed the technology to present their identity and connect in personally meaningful ways while the architect works to define and regulate acceptable models of use.

REFLEXIVE CONSIDERATIONS

It is important to note that I have been an active participant observer amidst both Friendster users and the social networking software creators. I have tracked Friendster through the media and through the viral discussions on mailing lists, blogs and IRC channels I have organized six focus groups of various relevant social groups and have interviewed or surveyed over 200 users on various aspects of their Friendster experience. Via access to 1/3 of the Profiles, I have analyzed thousands of Profiles and run queries on the visible data. While the vast majority of these accounts are located abroad (predominantly in Asia), the majority of my informants have been in the United States and Canada. Furthermore, the majority of my interviews took place before October 2003, although the site continues to grow and attract new relevant social groups. I have also consulted with or advised many competing companies and I have regularly informed the press of my findings. In studying Friendster, my primary ethnographic goals are to: 1) understand how people negotiate context when presenting themselves; 2) examine how the network structure of a meme spreads and connects people; 3) determine the issues involved in articulating one’s social network as compared to a behavior-driven network.

WHAT IS FRIENDSTER?

Friendster is a website that allows people to explicitly articulate their social network, present themselves through a Profile (interests and demographics), post public Testimonials about one another, and browse a network of people. Friendster is built on the assumption that friends-of-friends are more likely to be good dates than strangers.The site was built to compete with Match.com and other online dating sites, with social networks as an additional feature. While Milgram argues that everyone is connected through a countable number of connections [5], Friendster only allows you to access those within four degrees. Unlike most dating sites, Friendster encourages users to join even if they are not looking for dates, under the assumption that they probably know a wide variety of friends who are looking and, thus, would serve as a meaningful connector and recommender.
Friendster launched its public beta in the fall of 2002. As of early January 2004, the site is still in beta and has amassed over 5 million registered accounts and is still growing. Both mainstream and alternative press have covered the site, yet word of mouth is the dominant entry point for most people. It is important to note that users have a selfish motivation in spreading the meme, as their network grows by doing so.
Friendster’s population is primarily cluster-driven and users often convince their entire friend group to participate. While Friendster users are typically 20-something, educated city dwellers, their social and sexual interests are quite diverse. As such, they bring vastly different intentions and expectations to the site.

THE VALUE OF THE NETWORK

Friendster assumes that users will authentically define their identity via their Profile so as to ensure more meaningful connections. Embedded in this is the assumption that users will see the value in connecting to actual Friends. This is a critical assumption because the desired theoretical results rely on the accuracy of this. Unfortunately, Friendster fails to recognize that publicly articulated social networks and identities are not identical to the private articulation gathered by sociologists. Furthermore, while sociologists have employed various techniques to categorize and weight relationships, people are often unable to do this individually. As shown in Friendster, this architectural difference results in behavior not predicted by the sociological analysis developed on top of observed behavior and protected informants. Relationship indicators in Friendster are binary: Friend or not. When traversing the network, there is no way to determine what metric was used or what the role or weight of the relationship is. While some people are willing to indicate anyone as Friends, and others stick to a conservative definition, most users tend to list anyone who they know and do not actively dislike. This often means that people are indicated as Friends even though the user does not particularly know or trust the person. In some cases, it is necessary to publicly be-Friend someone simply for political reasons. Sometimes, people connect broadly so that they may see a larger percentage of the network. Because of this weakness in the system, the weight of a Friend connection is often devalued because trust cannot be guaranteed. Users publicly recognized this by using the term Friendster in everyday conversation to describe one’s Friends. Overheard conversations might include statements such as “She’s not my friend, but she’s my Friendster” and
“Did you see that Alex is Drew’s Friendster?”
Publicly articulated social networks also disempower the person performing. As the hub of one’s social network, power exists in the structural holes that one maintains [3]. By controlling what information flows between different connections, one is able to maintain a significant role in transactions that occur, and thereby control information flow. This is the value of a headhunter or a businesswoman’s Rolodex. Even at the simplest levels, people are often uncomfortable with certain groups of friends to be able to reach out and connect with others, or for work colleagues to connect with personal friends. By asking users to articulate and collapse their network in a public way, Friendster is also asking them to give up their status as a social connector, or bridge.


PRESENTATION OF SELF

A Friendster Profile consists of five primary elements:

1) demographic information;
2) interest and self-description prose;
3) picture(s);
4) Friend listings;
5) Testimonials.

While providing both the individual’s perspective of self as well as that of their Friends is beneficial, the Profile is still a coarse representation of the individual, which provides a limited and often skewed perspective [2]. The Profile represents how the individual chooses to present their identity at a specific time and with a particular understanding of one’s audience. While the audience and the individual evolve over time, one’s Friendster Profile is usually stuck in time. Friend and Profile information are rarely updated and people only remove Friends when there is an explosive end to the relationship, as opposed to the more common growing apart. Testimonials are only a tribute of the moment and reflect the same type of language one might see in a high school yearbook. Fundamentally, context is missing from what one is presenting. On one hand, an individual is constructing a Profile for a potential date. Yet, simultaneously, one must consider all of the friends, colleagues and other relations who might appear on the site. It can be argued that this means an individual will present a more truthful picture, but having to present oneself consistently across connections from various facets of one’s life is often less about truth
than about social appropriateness [1]. Another argument is that one is simply performing for the public, but in doing so, one obfuscates the quirks that often make one interesting to a potential suitor. Notably, most users fear the presence of two people on Friendster: boss and mother. Teachers also fear the presence of their students. This articulated concern suggests that users are aware that, in everyday activity they present different information depending on the audience. Given the task of creating a Profile, users elect to present themselves based on how they balance the public/private dimension.

FRIENDSTER AS A SITE OF CONNECTION

People use Friendster to connect to others for a variety of reasons. Most users begin surfing Friendster by looking for people that they already know, either currently or in the past. In doing so, it is assumed that there is value in reconnecting with long lost friends. For some, this is not true. One interviewee removed her account on Friendster when her high school boyfriend contacted her – she “didn't want [the] past dredged up.” While these relationships are quite outdated, people often link to these found old Friends, even though they may now have little in common and cannot vouch for one another when friends want to connect. While the initial Friend search is in order to build one’s network, Friendster users regularly search for people out of curiosity. They look up colleagues and other people who exist in their daily lives. Headhunters use the service to track potential employees’ personal lives. Beyond individual connections, groups of people have organized private “elite” clubs and started weekly pub gatherings through Friendster. Anti-Friendster users have connected in rebellion. In one somber situation, a man with a Friendster account passed away in his sleep. His unconnected friends were able to pass on information to one another via the site. Friends of other deceased Friendster users have constructed memorials via the site. Two users capitalized on their social network. Believing in the value of their network, they decided to auction connections on eBay. In their ads, they promised both Friendster and real-life connections to hipsters, artists, musicians, record labels, etc. One was serious, while the other was simply making a point: “The 'self' you're packaging on Friendster is a strictly delimited individual - but when I'm selling my network on ebay, the value is determined by my extended self, defined by its relationships and surfaces rather than content - in other words, the true me, in its full, fragmented, postmodern glory, all the more true the instant a dollar value is placed on it!” Other users have capitalized on the network structure of Friendster. Women advertise their porn sites by attracting potential clientele. One group of users created a network of Fraudster Profiles to deal drugs, using the Bulletin Board to announce “events” – coded cues to indicate the availability of specific drugs. While most users are just using the site for fun, curiosity and to play with their friends, it is important to note that many are using it for its intended purpose: dating. The majority of dating falls into three categories: hookups, direct pestering and familiar strangers.