Remember when Friendster was all the rage a few years back? You could reconnect with long lost friends. You could see if any of your acquaintances somehow knew each other. If you wanted to know what your friends were up to, you would simply click on their profile to view the new pictures they'd posted. And then... it was all slowly and quietly forgotten.Oh, you'd occasionally hop back on to "Friendster" someone new you'd met (maybe a potential date), and that was usually after you'd Googled them. It was a good stalking-friendly tool. Or maybe you would sporadically check in on people you already knew whenever you remembered. But that initial fascination really fizzled.
In recent months, Friendster has done a lot to try to win us back. It realized we'd fallen out of love, so it got a makeover to make itself appealing again. The blogs were a good idea, another way to get updated on the latest and greatest. (I'll admit I was tempted to use theirs, but now I'm loyal to Blogger.) I'm diggin' the birthday reminder emails. It's all luring me to log back in to Friendster now and then. The last time I checked, I noticed another new feature: profile views. In just a couple weeks, my profile had been viewed over 100 times. I wondered, "Who the heck is looking at my profile?" I knew it wasn't just my friends. If you pondered the same question, then wonder no more! Now you can find out specifically who has accessed you on Friendster lately.
My first thought was, "Cool, now I can see who's been stalking me!" My 1.5 thought was, "Uh oh, now ___ will think I've been stalking them!" Oh, well. Whatever. Whether it's stalking or not, it's a fascinating find. Check it out!
Hey, to my friendsters out there who have looked at mine - and now you know I know who you are - send me a real hello or leave a comment here. Let's not lurk in silence. Reach out and touch someone!
*update: In response to Laura's question, here's how to do it. When you sign in, you'll see a box in the upper left corner with "My Inbox, Update My Profile, My Profile Stats..." Just under the number of times "your profile has been viewed," there is an orange link for "Who's Viewed Me." I should also point out that you can continue to stalk or be stalked and remain unnoticed. On the "Who's Viewed Me" page, there's a link in the upper right corner to turn On/Off "Viewing profiles anonymously." And there ya go.
2 comments:
Jenn,
Thanks for inviting me into your world!!
I have a stupid question about this post . . . . I'm interested to see who's "stalking" me. I can see how many times I've been viewed, but not who. Help!!
I love how people use that word - "stalking" or "stalker". It's as if anyone who randomly (or even deliberately) visits somebody's blog or personal web page is a "stalker", just because you don't know them.
On the other hand, that's how the vast majority of pages are visited.
Not to mention, social networking sites like Friendster encourage random visits. That's why they give you the ability search for members meeting certain criteria.
With regard to Friendster's recent "makeover", I suspect it's in large part due to competition from other sites (most notably MySpace) who were offering similar services. I like the "new" Friendster. It brought me back. I hadn't been there in years. To me, the original version was kind of dull.
MySpace has been offering blogs for as long as I can recall (although I've only been a member for a year or so). I've never cared much for MySpace. I'm there mostly because "everyone" else seems to be.
Friendster was wise to partner with TypePad for their blogs. It's based on Movable Type, which is arguably the best blogging tool around.
I had toyed with a blog here but I could never quite get it going. It's easier to blog on the MovableType engine than the Blogger engine. Movable Type just has more features including more built in features.
Someday when I get around to it I'll probalby publish my own blog with the WordPress blogging tool (also based on movable type). That was one of the reasons I went out and got my own domain name.
But I digress...
I hope this change to Friendster keeps them around. I frankly think they are superior to MySpace.
Post a Comment