Orkut and Frictionless Whuffie Fun: Are we still speaking English? · 224 words posted 01/26/2004 12:55 PM
You can instantly measure your techno-cultural savvy if you can parse the following quote by Ross Mayfield.
orkut, which should really be named Oogle, demonstrated that a high performance explicit social networking site, well designed for digital immeadiate [sic] gratification (one local engineer personally even complained they had to click from map to profile to add a friend), supported by brand and with the right root can unleash latent demand. I would say this is reflective of the dearth of social capital in our society, but aside from such heady stuff, frictionless whuffie fun, huh? Latent demand for what is the question.
In case you haven’t heard, orkut is an invitation-only social networking service launched late last week by Google. Between Thursday and Saturday it grew so explosively (over 3 million pages views) that it had to be temporarily taken off-line. It also spawned an instant cottage industry of orkut experts.
There are so many things to ponder with the rise of orkut (the death of the weekend, viral marketing, the pace at which language changes, etc.) but don’t bother: why do I feel like we’ve been here before? Is this anything more than a high school clique driven by some clever technology and piggybacking on a resurgence of late-90s internet froth?
Maybe it’s just sour grapes: I still haven’t been invited to join.
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