To friendster or not to — that is the question

I see Friendster (and other social networking sites) as something of a novelty on the internet, something akin to a “rabbit” (an old program similar to a virus that replicates itself, and over time takes up all resources of its host machine) that is just a waste of bandwidth. This has been going on ever since I knew about it way back 2003.

I realize nowadays that my view on social networking sites may be flawed in a way. It does take precious bandwidth (especially when done by some engineers at work). It might be something of a redundancy in the internet (we have chatrooms, IMs, and mailing lists to keep in touch with our peers).

However, when my wife “took the plunge” and joined a few days ago, I see a side of it that I haven’t before. There’s a little thrill in searching for a friend’s name and finding out that he or she is also registered. Not only that, it may also seem surprising that somebody you know is related to or knows someone else that you also knew (Whew! That was confusing!). Maybe that is the selling point that these social networking sites have that brought so many people — techie or not — closer to the internet.

Now I’m contemplating on eating my words and joining the bandwagon. I’m just a bit concerned that some lady friends might get my wife jealous when they try to keep in touch with me. So I have good reasons both in joining and not joining.

(Sigh.)