Danah Boyd blogs that Friendster is offering what is essentially a free version of TypePad to members. This is what Michael Jones has been talking about for a while now. Mike gave a great presentation at iDate which mentioned the values of adding blogs to profiles. Blogs are the next generation of profiles and personal ads, providing people with more freedom of expression, expanded findability and increases the stickiness of sites.
Frienster has been losing ground to competitors like Myspace for a while and the recent confusion over the deal with Eharmony didn’t bode well for the biggest name in social networking. Will offering blogs to members stem the stop the bleeding?
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This is an aspect of what is in general called the Semantic Social Network. For more:
http://www.downes.ca/cgi-bin/website/view.cgi?dbs=Article&key=1076791198
More discussion of the concept, from the point of view of blogs.
http://www.downes.ca/cgi-bin/website/view.cgi?dbs=Article&key=1109302318
It is interesting that the mechanisms described in the latter paper are especially appripriate to the dating community because, of course, it isn’t good is everybody ends up looking at one or two profiles – connections in dating have to be spread around, not concentrated, so that there is a partner for everyone.
Also, as you probably know, some online dating services have already started with blogs. Casual Kiss http://www.casualkiss.com for example. However, since these blogs are not in any way syndicated they are invisible to the wider community, and hence haven’t achieved what I would call wide usage even within the site.
Stephen, thanks for the links. Reputation management through blogrolls, Technorati Tags for dating, FOAF, all interesting topics. FOAF doesn’t seem to be going anywhere unfortunately, it still needs the killer app to make people want to use it. You did not mention annotation servers like Annotea, which I think, when managed properly, would be another way to refine the search process on dating sites.
Blogs have no place in traditional subscription based online dating websites, because at their cores they possess fundamentally different concepts. Blogs are open and personal while online dating is closed and anonymous.
“Blogs are open and personal while online dating is closed and anonymous.”
Neither statement is completely true.
Many blogs are anonymous. Travel through LiveJournal, for example. It is possible, and sometimes desirable, to conceal your identity when writing a blog. Some blogs are also closed. LiveJournal again offers a good example of this. So does the largely invisible world of academic and corporate blogging.
Not all dating sites are closed and anonymous. Casual Kiss was, at least, open. DateStreet is open. Being closed is mostly a business decision, not an inherent property.
And dating sites are only partially anonymous. People have a unique identity; otherwise it would be impossible to contact the person whose picture you are looking at. And members often reveal more (often despite the wishes of date site managers). “Meg 375 at the hot place.” You know.
I think that blogs and also mobile applications for Online Dating Social Networking will ONLY be a complement of a Dating/Social Networking site, not a main feature.
Any person could start a blog in an independent manner, no need to have a membership/subscription at a Dating/Social Networking site.
Perhaps a person owns a blog and he or she is subscribed to more than 5 Dating Sites. (no need to repeat 5 times the blog’s content)
If you start a blog, you need to write from time to time, continually or continuously, to provide content. Many blogs are only the “Public On Line Version of my Private Diary” read by anybody (the blog has any or no audience at all).
Kindest Regards,
Fernando Ardenghi
ardenghifer@argentina.com
This website/ company has by far one of the most original and innovative approaches to online dating.
Natalie, why do you think Lemontonic is so original and innovative? Features, membership, marketing, what?
what is this? Why do I get a list? Can I trust the content…
http://date.shagdr.com
Thanks
Sue Tully
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