boobasket@friendster, r.i.p.

What happens when a social network dies?

I recently decided to take my Friendster profile off life support, to put its pathetic, outdated self out of its misery once and for all.

Before I pulled the plug, I took a tour of my long history on that site. I saw testimonials written by people I'd dated years ago and no longer cared to contact, and pictures of myself before I'd welcomed my two gray hairs. Along the way, I also realized that my number of friends had dwindled; roughly 1/3 of my former connections had committed Friendster suicide. I Ebenezer-Scrooged for a few more minutes before deciding I really needed to fulfill my mission.

So then, why did I hesitate before hitting "delete"? Just moments earlier, I'd been so ready to pull the trigger! I guess my hesitation stemmed from a sad recognition that I'd once invested so much energy in building an online community that could eventually and organically stop growing, not unlike the people who comprised it. I hadn't taken full stock of the contingencies of the social network. It all felt so pointless.

The truth is that networks, of any sort, stay vital through the addition of nodes and the strands that connect them. This is not to say that networks with stale content hold no value; it's just that the value shifts. The surplus of energy that was once created by the members of the network (think: a whole greater than the sum of its parts) ceases to grow and instead gives way to a new purpose. The decaying social network is now more of a snapshot of what used to be - every profile frozen in place. Where Friendster was once a sustainable neighborhood of tin can walkie-talkies, it now appears instead like a museum exhibit buried under dust and quaintly lacking the shiny applications of Facebook. People still visit museums, and for good reason, but it's a different type of activity from plugging into a community that breathes on its own.

And so it goes...So long, Friendster, you gateway drug, you.