A few hours in and already I have a friend without even trying. And it’s a real person this time. The only thing is Melissa came across me via this blog rather than from within Myspace itself, but I friended her anyway because she seems nice.
Spent a few minutes today filling out my profile. I hate doing these as a rule. In fact I generally hate social networks as a rule. Not sure exactly why but it’s probably some kind of British reserve or just shyness, plus the blunt declaration of interests never seems to reflect the real inner ‘me’ in all it’s complexity. Or somesuch bullshit. But if I’m going to do this experiment properly then I’m going to have to throw myself into this 100%.
A big dilemma came with the big networking options. I have to select from Dating, Serious Relationships, Friends and Networking. Since I would instinctively select none of those I selected them all and for good measure added the sort of personal details I would not normally push out there. And I tried to be as honest as possible given the options available. My lose plan is not to be a social networking whore, throwing myself into the faces of everyone I come across, but to open myself up to all comers and see who bothers with me. And the honesty is really just laziness – I can never be arsed to construct a pseudonym.
The Myspace interface is fucking awful, it has to be said. I wonder how much of this is deliberate, in the same way that eBay is deliberately amateur looking so it’s not threatening to non-techy folk. If Flickr is a game then Myspace is a really annoying game full of inconsistencies and no decent help system and a very kludgy UI. Their support system for adding features seems to be to befriend someone who has those features and ask them how they did it, which is kinda cool I suppose.
I also did a bit of digging around the music stuff and so far it impresses. Clicking through one of my interests links (Murakami) I came across Helicoper Helicopter who seem to be a pretty functional indie band. An integrated music player immediately kicks off one of their songs (which is potentially annoying if you’re not expecting it) and you can download mp3s which is pretty neat. I friended them but have to wait for them approve said friending before it shows up on my profile.
An interesting aspect, which is probably not that strange but I’ve never played with it before, is browsing for people who are geographically close to you. Looking for women interesting in dating around my age who live within five miles brings up a surprising number but it feels a little too creepy to actually contact any of them. In fact that’s going to be my biggest step – actually contacting someone via this service based on their declared interests. I’m not even sure if I want to.
I seem nice? Thanks! I guess….