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Friendship for sale
BY KATE COHEN
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Is it possible to put a price on friendship? Members of Friendster.com, one of the Internet’s fastest-growing communities, are finding out, thanks to a handful of auctions on eBay that hawk friend lists to the highest bidder. Under headings like "Friendster Network Coolest Guy Association" and even "Friendster — Be Friends with KEITH RICHARDS!", sellers prey on the average Friendster’s yearning to add more friends to his or her network by giving the impression that theirs is the key connection to have; they also drop a few names (fictional and real) to sweeten the deal. Friendsters often vow that once money is involved, they won’t use the site anymore, but this could hardly be what they had in mind. In the Internet culture of geek cool, Friendster.com is one of the most popular social hubs. Over 1.1 million members have signed on to the free service, filling out a quick profile of interests, indicating their relationship status or dating preferences, and posting pictures that range from artsy Polaroids and coy illustrations to uncensored nudes. Members then tell their friends about the site, link up to their profiles, and are soon part of a "personal network," extending out to friends of friends by four degrees of separation. By its very nature, Friendster’s popularity grows exponentially by the day, and features in both the Village Voice ("Six Degrees of Sexual Frustration," June 4) and the New York Times ("Online Diary," June 5) have brought its beta site into the mainstream. Membership has surged so much that the site is often down at peak times and attempts to access it are met with an all-too-familiar "Thank you for using Friendster and sorry for the inconvenience" message or maddening repetitive prompts to log in. The system outages seem to do little to deter Friendsters. Paying nothing to join, they are connected to an online community that not only functions as Internet personals but also (in theory) serves to match activity partners and friends, who are searchable by interests and favorites. Although members must also wade through countless fake celebrity profiles, such as those for Donald Rumsfeld, Conan O’Brien, the entire cast of Jackass, plus inanimate objects like Atari and the Kendall Square Cinema, they might also stumble across forgotten high-school friends or ex-significant others. A new friend can mean a connection to at least a thousand other people, and pretty soon, logging on to Friendster becomes a daily habit, if only to see how high the count will go in one’s own personal network. Chuck Clark is selling his network as "Elite Friendster — Meet Hipsters, Musicians" on eBay. Based in Austin, Texas, Clark includes a lengthy description of the perks of being his friend: "By becoming my Friendster, you’ll be getting in on the ground floor with a group of Austin’s most creative people. They have flawless fashion sense, and their taste in music sets trends for the entire country. If you join my Friendster network, you’ll be able to see, meet, and perhaps even touch them." Reached by e-mail last week, Clark seemed nonchalant about selling his friends on eBay. "Most [of my friends] think it is a joke, and I am sure no one will bid on it, let alone go through with paying me." But Clark soon got real money for his auction, when another Friendster member used the "Buy It Now" option and sent Clark $10 — a success in this market (the Keith Richards sale netted only $2.25). Clark’s list was available again this week, but as the Phoenix went to press, there were no bids. People like Clark might be making a few bucks at Friendster’s expense, but the site’s founder, Jonathan Abrams, isn’t concerned about the online auctions. "This eBay thing is just a funny prank," he says. However, Friendster’s increased popularity, to which the eBay attention contributes, means that at some point, the site will have to start charging for its services. As Friendster friends grumble to themselves and speculate about what this might mean, Abrams is reassuring. "Basic membership will remain free, but contacting people you don’t know will require a small subscription, less than one-third of Match.com’s price." Still, seasoned Friendsters might not stick around to see the site through to its maturity. As one user notes on his network’s bulletin board, "Wasn’t this expected to be just another ‘snap-bracelet’ phenom of the aughts anyway?" Seems like the trendsters for whom Friendster is named, already being passed around on eBay like used electronics, may be poised to pick up and move on.
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