There's treasure everywhere

This post is a tribute to my dear Social / Collaborative / Identity brains .. namely Apophenia (aka Danah Boyd) / Geeking Greg (aka Greg Linden) / chimprawk (aka Fred Stutzman) ... and my dad.

I've paid tribute several times and will continue.

So danah has a brilliant article in First Monday called : "Friend, Friendster, Top8, writing community into being on social network sites" Here is some quotes"

While Collectors could be anyone interested in amassing many Friends, fake Profiles were developed to aid in this process. These Fakesters included characters, celebrities, objects, icons, institutions, and ideas. For example, Homer Simpson had a Profile alongside Jesus and Brown University. By connecting people with shared interests or affiliations, Fakesters supported networking between like-minded individuals. Because play and connecting were primary incentives for many Fakesters, they welcomed any and all Friends. Likewise, people who wanted access to more people connected to Fakesters. Fakesters helped centralize the network and two Fakesters — Burning Man and Ali G — reached mass popularity with over 10,000 Friends each before the Web site’s creators put an end to their collecting and deleted both accounts. This began the deletion of all Fakesters in what was eventually termed the Fakester Genocide [8].
While Friendster was irritated by fake Profiles, MySpace embraced this practice. One of MySpace’s early strategies was to provide a place for everyone who was rejected from Friendster or who didn’t want to be on a dating site [9]. Bands who had been kicked off of Friendster were some of the earliest MySpace users. Over time, movie stars, politicians, porn divas, comedians, and other celebrities joined the fray. Often, the person behind these Profiles was not the celebrity but a manager. Corporations began creating Profiles for their products and brands. While Friendster eventually began allowing such fake Profiles for a fee, MySpace never charged people for their commercial uses.

People connect to Fakesters, celebrities, and commercial Profiles for a variety of reasons. Some are simply entertained by the Profiles themselves. Others feel as though these Profiles say something about who they are.

greg is on fire and manage to relate nearly any good and bad news to personnalization. And I will not be the one who does not agree ! Yahoo is in the Game ....

Fred is vibrant about the adoption of OpenID and carefull for what happens with SN.

Last, thanks dad (as good as Feld's Mentor) for your present : the sens of Calvin & Hobbes : "There's treasure everywhere" explaining the title and why I'm digging!