I first heard about Facebook during Orientation weekend at college.  Back then Facebook was open only to colleges and then only to certain colleges.  When it came to the school I was attending at the time, it was a Really Big Deal.  Apparently people from my school had been campaigning to get it added for quite awhile.  Nobody really used Myspace then, it was all about the ‘book. Nearly everyone I knew had one.

Then it started opening up.  First to high school students, then to anyone with a work email, then finally to anyone in the world who wanted to join.  Somewhere in all of this came the applications.  Not too soon after were the random friend adds from people I’d never heard of.  People started abandoning and deleting their profiles, and the ones who didn’t logged in much less often.

Now it’s just like any other site.  Nearly all social networking sites try to be like Myspace eventually and destroy the things that made it unique and appealing.  All to get more users (and advertising revenue)…

1. Televison Without Pity

I usually work in the evenings, so I tend to miss the few shows I actively follow. The recaps here are very detailed and quite entertaining.

2. Web Comics

Some of my favorites include: Chugworth Academy, Questionable Content, Penny Arcade, and Ctrl+Alt+Del

3. Giveaway of the Day

This site gives away a different software program everyday for free. The only catch is that it has to be downloaded, activated, and installed before the day is over. At midnight pacific time, the offer expires and a new program is posted.

4. Holiday_Wishes

A LiveJournal community with a simple, but great concept: lists of up to ten wishes are posted by members. They respond to each others postings and fulfill the wishes if they are able. Wishes range from requests for postcards and new LiveJournal friends to requests for donations of time or money to a favorite charity to expensive electronic items.

I have a new hostee, her name is Raven and she’s a bit of a strange one. It might have been a mistake to agree to host her. Maybe I shouldn’t advertise for hosting on Despair anymore….. The site’s not finished, but she has several blogs up (although they lack dates and a way to comment). They’re worth a read at least.

Her site: Razorblade Rhapsody.
The only place she receives comments.

I just received a comment congratulating me on the birth of my daughter and that it must be such an exciting time. This makes wonder if people actually read entries because premature birth and death isn’t something to celebrate and be excited about. It seems much more likely that they just skimmed and latched on to one statement to comment on. This happened a lot when I was a member of Despair.nu (thanks for deleting my account while I was in the hospital by the way…).

Sites like Despair and Exentrique are good in theory. Your site is exposed to new visitors and you find new blogs to read. The problem is that members are “forced” to comment on the sites they are given. This leads to the tl;dr syndrome of the “hey nice layout” comments or the ones like the one referenced above.

The solution to this isn’t doing away with such sites completely. Instead, let’s have a site where members are sent links to 3-5 new blogs once or twice a week. Commenting is optional. In fact, if the blog doesn’t interest the member at all, it can be removed from their rotation. There will also be a directory that allows members to browse profiles to find interesting people and blogs outside of the rotation.

Would a site like this interest you? What other features would you like to see?