I found myself writing a series of scraps to someone - a stranger - on this network a few minutes ago. Well, the gentleman should be a stranger except that I saw my photograph as one of his seven friends on the profile... Actually, he was Mary_Aranxia's friend, chosen because he was over 40 and it is my policy to try to befriend everyone here in that age group.
I started this practice of befriending every person over 40 here during the first wave of my life here on Frooler in April. I noticed very quickly that there were relatively few people here in that age range and so I wanted to do something to keep them engaged and feeling special. I befriended them, created communities with them in mind and spent most of my time chatting with them... To no avail though. They have largely abandoned this space along with the other persons of a much more recent generation.... Sadly, my return in December was to the realisation that Frooler is dying.
Throughout, though, even during my first stint here I have wondered what it took to attract people to sites like this. Why is Orkut so popular? Why hi5? Facebook? I have always thought that it has something to do with the communities; people gathering around common interests that does it... Now, I'm not so sure because that hasn't really worked in Orkut - if the amount of spam that I receive from them is any indication. I also don't believe it because of the amount of work that I have put into my communities without commensurate success. Perhaps I'm not doing it well enough, though I do think that mine give more information and offer more forums than most I've seen either here or on Orkut.
Thekiller_666 and I chatted two evenings ago about some of these issues and I hope that he will use some of his energy to advocate for some of the changes that I think are in order to save this network... I don't.
Tags: Death Of A Social Network Multiple Personalities
