Why befriending is yet another trend
I really enjoyed my Burger King Whopper tonight.
Not only was this Burger King promotion another great example of new kinds of marketing and advertising coming out of BK’s ad firm Crispin Porter + Bogusky - but it also was sweet to be able to ride on the backs of all those trolls, instant friends and wannabee friends - who turn this wonderful world of social networking - into some popularity contest.
Not only do I not care about how many friends I get - but I also can remember back (not too long ago) when Joi Ito and myself occupied the top statistical slots established by Orkut - in its first few months.
Here’s a screen grab I took from back in those days, where Joi is #1 and I’m #2 in connectors, I’m #1 and Joi is #5 in celebrities and Joi is #1 and I’m #10 in stars. Both Joi and I gamed the system once we figured out how the algorithms worked.
Now friending, following and mutual contacts are the trends du jour. And some of us find ourselves with 1,000s of unknown friends who (quite frankly) don’t give a shit about me.
So recently I’ve been noticing that others are also defriending. Its the new fad!
1UP.com. aSmallWorld.com, CyworldUS.com, Always-on, Going-on, VisualFX - the list goes on and on of the various social networks I helped design and launch back in the day. And now there are all the client networks we build, launch and manage for our customers.
Defriending is the new trend. Cleaning house and flushing the toilet is also in fad. Put them both together and you’ve got yourself a real live social phenomena.
