Friendster
Okay, I finally signed up for Friendster. I'm a little dubious, but the synchronicity was too much—I read a blurb at boingboing that mentioned it in passing while pointing to tribe.net, then I checked email and found my third (I think?) invite.
I kinda enjoyed the original sixdegrees.com back in the day (though it seems to have morphed into something very different, judging by their front page—now it's a "dating site merged with a travel guide," apparently), but I know various people were unhappy with the notion of (a) having to define what category people fit into (friend, acquaintance, etc), and (b) having to do so publicly. (Me, I'm capable of being pretty relaxed about my definition of "friend" in this sort of context.) I'm guessing there'll be the same sort of resistance to Friendster, though it does have a bit more of the hip 20something vibe going for it. Also the meat-market thing. (When you sign up for Friendster, you're supposed to tell it whether you're (a) single, (b) in a relationship, (c) married, or (d) in an open marriage. Apparently they haven't heard about polyamorous non-marriages yet.)
I'm probably not going to invite anyone to join Friendster, though; I'll probably just respond to requests from friends. And maybe make requests to friends who are already signed up. Or something. For that matter, I probably won't get into the online-community aspects; I already have more online communities than I know what to do with. But my most recent invitation said "this thing is kind of fun," so I'll give it a chance.
Okay, this entry is getting less coherent by the second, so I think I'll go home and have dinner. And read subs. And edit. And read Hugo nominees.