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Monday, January 26, 2004
The Rapid Ryze of Business Networking
Further to the Orkut item: the following data surely must be indicative of something.
I had been a quiet, from-afar admirer of the online business networking concept, but hadn't done much about it after joining Ryze at the bronze level. Over a period of about six months, in the context of a pretty-much dormant account, I received three or so invites to join people's "friend list" on Ryze, and had sent out a couple myself. The profiles I browsed were of some pretty accomplished people, connected with other accomplished people. Most of them were younger than me and had seen more of the world and worked in more cool jobs by age 27 than most people will in a lifetime. Maybe it's all that networking that does it. Anyway, "neat," I thought, and then thought little more of it.
A few days ago, Google came out with -- or allowed itself to be affiliated with, I should say -- Orkut. In keeping with the coy dating-as-business or business-as-dating metaphors evoked by the likes of Friendster, Orkut claims to be an online community that can "expand the circumference" of your "social circle." Now there's a bit of mathematical double-entendre worthy of a would-be Trump intern...
Anyway, the important math is that within 24 hours after Orkut was opened to the public, I received three friendship invites by people who had already taken the trouble to fill in detailed profiles, add pictures, etc. Some already had a dozen friends on their list when I popped in... all with photos... looking at one another like some sort of geeky hypertext Brady Bunch.
The same number of friend-vites in 24 hrs. as I'd received on a competing service in 6 months. Uh, oh! You're going to need more server capacity, Google!
Posted by
Andrew Goodman
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