An interesting take on the so-called "pure" friendships that can be spawned by way of instant messaging. Online friendships aren't just initiated by way of IM of course. I've developed a number of friendships through disassociated, in some cases I've never actually met the people I've gone on to correspond with, though I can certainly empathise with some of Naomi Alderman's experiences: My dear friend Andrea - who lives in ... Read full entry

Perhaps we should start cataloguing all the quagmires and quandaries that social networks have gone and created for us. I actually have a queue of friend requests stagnating at each and every social networking site I belong to because I just don't feel like I'm "friends" with these individuals. And I feel guilty, because even though I know that the web wants me to accept a very broad definition ... Read full entry

At last, an opportunity to finally learn something about everyone's friend on MySpace the otherwise elusive "Tom" aka, Tom Anderson, co-founder of what is now the world's second most popular social network. Anderson seems a little nervous and unspun. With his fringe, skinny jeans, hooded top and scuffed Adidas, he could pass for a member of one of the hundreds of thousands of bands that now use MySpace ... Read full entry

Marvin Gaye and Diana Ross could have told us this years ago: "Ain't No Mountain High Enough" Simone Schnall at the University of Plymouth, UK, and her colleagues asked students to estimate the steepness of a hill by tilting a board to match its slope. Students with a friend nearby assessed the hill at 10 to 15 per cent less steep compared with those who were alone during the ... Read full entry

The economy of Friending Steven Hodson on the problems, or absurdities, of be-friending people (or complete strangers) via social networks simply to create a pretence, or appearance, of popularity. The keyword hear is appear because the reality is that half the people that you either have friended or have friended you will forget about you or why they friended you in the first place. As for your own lists when was ... Read full entry

It's already time to add to the list of ways to make it big online that I posted last Friday, and, at the risk of overstating the obvious, here's the latest suggestion: Friends. Keep many friends, or a posse of regular readers about you online, and the good times are sure to roll. An example of how a ton of buddies, or at least subscribers to your ... Read full entry