I will never say it enough, you need to be careful when you decide to meet with someone you only know online. I've read a few stories recently about offline meetings that turned into tragedy. A 19 year old woman disappears after meeting with man she met online. A pregnant woman was abducted by a teen age girl she met on myspace. It seems the teen girl was going to cut the baby boy out and pretend she's hers. As you can see the danger does not only come from the men you meet online it may come from the women as well.
Related Links
Meeting People Online II - To Catch a Predator
They are preying on your kids
Showing posts with label Meeting People Online. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Meeting People Online. Show all posts
Wednesday, September 05, 2007
Saturday, August 11, 2007
The geography of social networking sites
Each country or community has its preferred social networking web site. Knowing which site the people from a certain country prefer, you can be sure to have the best odds of meeting a person from that country or community, at that particular web site.
A preferred social networking site is not only the networking site where people from a specific country are the most numerous, it's also the site where they are the most active. Below is the list of social networking web sites I've come up, with after a few years of being a member of most of them.
I personally prefer Friendster for the look and easiness of use, Hi5 for the community, and Orkut for flexibility and control over your information. I'm not a Myspace member and I've only started using Perfspot this year, unless the later go through a major update and aggressive marketing campaign it will die soon enough. I guess it's hard to have all your social networking needs met by only one web site.
How about you? What's your favorite Social Networking Site? Please tell me by living a comment to this post and also remember to specify your country.
Related Posts:
Friendster, Hi5 and Orkut
Perfspot - Yet Another Social Networking Site
Meeting People Online - Part I
A preferred social networking site is not only the networking site where people from a specific country are the most numerous, it's also the site where they are the most active. Below is the list of social networking web sites I've come up, with after a few years of being a member of most of them.
- Friendster for Filipinos/Asians
- Myspace for Americans Myspace is extremely popular in the United States but its success doesn't seem to have spread too much worldwide.
- Hi5 for Haitians
- Orkut for Indians and Brazilians I've received spam in Portuguese from Brazilian spammers who found my email through Orkut. I have three Gmail accounts, and the only one on which I receive those "Brazilian" spam messages is the one I use to connect to Orkut. Though I don't have any Brazilian contacts on Orkut, many of the Indian friends I've met online are there with their family, friends and coworkers.
- Perfspot for Turks I've notice a high number of Turkish people on Perfspot, I'm guessing the founders must be Turkish or of Turkish origins.
I personally prefer Friendster for the look and easiness of use, Hi5 for the community, and Orkut for flexibility and control over your information. I'm not a Myspace member and I've only started using Perfspot this year, unless the later go through a major update and aggressive marketing campaign it will die soon enough. I guess it's hard to have all your social networking needs met by only one web site.
How about you? What's your favorite Social Networking Site? Please tell me by living a comment to this post and also remember to specify your country.
Related Posts:
Friendster, Hi5 and Orkut
Perfspot - Yet Another Social Networking Site
Meeting People Online - Part I
Thursday, August 09, 2007
Perfspot - Yet Another Social Networking Site
Perfspot is a social networking site that I've recently discovered. I consider it to be the turkish-beta-version of Friendster.
As in Friendster, there's the fake "hotel manager" from Canada who wants you to come and work at her hotel (omni hotels). I have no idea why it always has be Canada I guess it's because it's the same person. Read this forum thread about this fraudster (or someone like him/her).
[Here's the message she sent to me:
Good day, I am Rose from Canada, the manager of Omni canadian hotel, pls i want to inform you about the vacancies in our hotel, The management needs men and women, married and not married, who will work and live in canada .The hotel will pay for his flight ticket and assist him to process his visa in his country, if you are interested contact us via E-mail : omnihotels_international@yahoo.ca And the Hotel informations will be sent to you immediately. Thanks. From the Hotel manager. E-MAIL : omnihotels_international@yahoo.ca ]
The worst part is that this person is using someone's pictures on his profile. My guess, this person is not a woman but a man and probably located in an African country not Canada.
I wrote to one of the site's officials and told him about it. The spammer's profile is no longer on the site.
Guess what? I've had two Haitians wanting to add me as their friend on Perfspot, one of them even wrote me a message... It's usually a good sign when you find Haitians on a web site. Why is that? Because there aren't too many of us online, so if a web site has succeeded in having active Haitian members it means that the site has a hole lot of people from other countries and is (potentially) a popular success.
As in Friendster, there's the fake "hotel manager" from Canada who wants you to come and work at her hotel (omni hotels). I have no idea why it always has be Canada I guess it's because it's the same person. Read this forum thread about this fraudster (or someone like him/her).
[Here's the message she sent to me:
Good day, I am Rose from Canada, the manager of Omni canadian hotel, pls i want to inform you about the vacancies in our hotel, The management needs men and women, married and not married, who will work and live in canada .The hotel will pay for his flight ticket and assist him to process his visa in his country, if you are interested contact us via E-mail : omnihotels_international@yahoo.ca And the Hotel informations will be sent to you immediately. Thanks. From the Hotel manager. E-MAIL : omnihotels_international@yahoo.ca ]
The worst part is that this person is using someone's pictures on his profile. My guess, this person is not a woman but a man and probably located in an African country not Canada.
I wrote to one of the site's officials and told him about it. The spammer's profile is no longer on the site.
Guess what? I've had two Haitians wanting to add me as their friend on Perfspot, one of them even wrote me a message... It's usually a good sign when you find Haitians on a web site. Why is that? Because there aren't too many of us online, so if a web site has succeeded in having active Haitian members it means that the site has a hole lot of people from other countries and is (potentially) a popular success.
Monday, July 16, 2007
Meeting People the second time around
If you intend to meet people online by joining specialized web sites or social networks you should take some time to fill out your profile correctly. Besides the basic information, the most important parts of your profile are those where you describe yourself in your own words and the ones where you describe the person you would like to meet.
I have profiles on so many websites that I've not only lost count of them but also have no idea what it is I had written there. But every once in a while I receive a message from one of those web sites I had completely forgotten about.
Last week-end for example has been quite an interesting one for me. I've been away from the internet since Saturday evening. And this morning as I came online to check my emails, blog statistics, comments and so on, I found a whole lot of emails waiting for me. Many are from various subscriptions but others were from "meeting-people" websites.
I had people sending me email, virtual flowers on both Friendfinder and Connecting Singles. Then I had about half a dozen matches from eHarmony.
I created my first Friendfinder profile about three years ago but no one ever expressed interest in me back then, and I eventually deleted it. It's also the second time I've joined eHarmony, the first time they never found a match for me, now suddenly I have half a dozen of them, maybe it's because I put fewer geographical restrictions. As for connecting singles, at some point I had completely forgotten about it. But when I was sent a first message a few weeks ago, I came back and realized that the text in my profile was so good that I might as well copy and paste it on any other site I want to join -and that's exactly what I did from that day on-.
I have profiles on so many websites that I've not only lost count of them but also have no idea what it is I had written there. But every once in a while I receive a message from one of those web sites I had completely forgotten about.
Last week-end for example has been quite an interesting one for me. I've been away from the internet since Saturday evening. And this morning as I came online to check my emails, blog statistics, comments and so on, I found a whole lot of emails waiting for me. Many are from various subscriptions but others were from "meeting-people" websites.
I had people sending me email, virtual flowers on both Friendfinder and Connecting Singles. Then I had about half a dozen matches from eHarmony.
I created my first Friendfinder profile about three years ago but no one ever expressed interest in me back then, and I eventually deleted it. It's also the second time I've joined eHarmony, the first time they never found a match for me, now suddenly I have half a dozen of them, maybe it's because I put fewer geographical restrictions. As for connecting singles, at some point I had completely forgotten about it. But when I was sent a first message a few weeks ago, I came back and realized that the text in my profile was so good that I might as well copy and paste it on any other site I want to join -and that's exactly what I did from that day on-.
Thursday, July 12, 2007
Connecting Singles
Connecting Singles is a web site where you can meet people for free. I usually find the free web sites irresistible. Connecting Singles looked decent enough and I did decide to give it a try. Here's a list of quick facts about the site:
Related Posts:
Friendster, Hi5 and Orkut
Crisscross Network
Meet me at Hot or Not
Perfspot - Yet Another Social Networking Site
Meeting People the second time around
- targeted population : It's an international website, people from around the world are welcomed to join.
- amount of members : They have a reasonable number of members.
- people in my area (Haiti) : Yes they do have a few Haitians, I was contacted by two of them!
- quality of service : Good quality for a free website. It's basic but efficient.
- number of features : A fair amount of features, flower sending and forums are very much used by the members.
- finding people (search) : You can search for people based on all the elements possible on a profile.
- contacting : Contacting people is very simple. You have the option of sending a flower with a quick note or a classic email.
- spamming : I have received no spam in over a year of membership.
- the community : I've seen many active discussions in the forums. The community seems to be very much alive and diversified also.
- have I met anyone interesting : I've made a few contacts (about a dozen) two of them seem to be very interesting.
- anything else : Yes. Even though I said in my profile that I'm not searching for a date I still get contacted by guys are interested and want to "see my picture or start a "meaningful" long-term relationship with me", or feel this "indescribable" and irresistible attraction to me (based solely on what I wrote in my profile). I don't even have a picture on that profile and still I get contacted by men from many different countries who are interested in me. Yes I told you my profile is that good! Unfortunately, not a single girl has contacted me. It's a shame but I'm sure it's due to the fact that the site is called Connecting "Singles" and therefore it's mostly viewed as a dating site and not a site where you can just make friends.
Related Posts:
Friendster, Hi5 and Orkut
Crisscross Network
Meet me at Hot or Not
Perfspot - Yet Another Social Networking Site
Meeting People the second time around
Friday, July 06, 2007
Meet me at Hot or Not
Do you Know "Meet Me"? How about "Hot or Not"? Hot or Not is a website where you post a picture and get points based on other users' ratings. Meet Me is a part of the site where you also post your picture but don't necessarily want people to rate it. Meet Me used to be like most online meeting websites, everybody could join for free but only paid members could initiate contact, not anymore. In may, Jim and James, the founders of Hot or Not decided to make the service completely free...
If you want to use Hot or Not's Meet Me, I'll give you one piece of advice, don't agree to meet -by "meet" I mean contact online not actually face to face meeting... - anyone who does not have a clear picture of him/herself or worse, someone with an evidently fake picture. Free services attract many people. Even when the service was not completely free I did meet quite a few people who had a paid membership. Though I must say that the initial contact didn't evolve into a very strong relationship but I still have some of them on my yahoo messenger contact list. I don't know about the girls but most of the guys' profiles I've come across are not fake. So you can add Hot or Not (Meet Me) on your list of websites where you can meet people online.
Why wouldn't you want to use Hot or Not to meet people online? The only reason would be if you are uncomfortable with putting your picture online since the service is based on photos you can't be a member without having your photo. The other reason why you might not enjoy the service is if you're not in the US, thought they do have people in many locations but most of the members are in the United States of America.
If you want to use Hot or Not's Meet Me, I'll give you one piece of advice, don't agree to meet -by "meet" I mean contact online not actually face to face meeting... - anyone who does not have a clear picture of him/herself or worse, someone with an evidently fake picture. Free services attract many people. Even when the service was not completely free I did meet quite a few people who had a paid membership. Though I must say that the initial contact didn't evolve into a very strong relationship but I still have some of them on my yahoo messenger contact list. I don't know about the girls but most of the guys' profiles I've come across are not fake. So you can add Hot or Not (Meet Me) on your list of websites where you can meet people online.
Why wouldn't you want to use Hot or Not to meet people online? The only reason would be if you are uncomfortable with putting your picture online since the service is based on photos you can't be a member without having your photo. The other reason why you might not enjoy the service is if you're not in the US, thought they do have people in many locations but most of the members are in the United States of America.
Tuesday, May 01, 2007
Meeting People Online II - To Catch a Predator
I've wanted to write about the american television show Dateline: To Catch a Predator since the first time I watched it. Frankly my thoughts never seemed to come in order as I think of this show. It has existed for some time now but I've only been aware of it in the past months.
The premise of the show is as follows. The people of Dateline team up with a group called 'Perverted-Justice'. They have volunteers from Perverted Justice posing as a 12,13, or 16 year old [age varies] and meeting adult men [as in 18 and up]. The volunteers pose as either boys or girls. They enter chat rooms typically and eventually meet with older men who are very interested in them. The chatting soon becomes very sexually explicit. If you're a woman and have ever met people in chat rooms you know how things can get and what type of conversations most of those people lead. If you're a man you're either one of those people or have no idea what I'm talking about...
After chatting for a while and sometimes even exchanging pictures, the fake kid and the potential predator arrange a meeting a the kid's house. The fake kid tells the potential predator that he/she'll be home alone, so it's a golden opportunity for them to meet. Then they would chat about what he'll do when he gets there. - It does not always go on like this but I just wanted you to have an idea, to know what they chat about visit Dateline's web site.-
Those men are so clueless. But the unreal part of all this is the "child. Never any disgust nor anger no matter what the guy throws at her. That "child" is so willing and going along with absolutely all the men are saying, and telling them that she's home alone is just unreal. A child who does such a thing needs serious help. I really have a hard time imagining any teen ager doing such a thing unless he/she has major issues or really huge problems at home. I've met quite a few young chatters online and they don't disclose their personal information to the new comers just like that. When you think of it, it's really twisted. You can see some videos and transcripts of the show their website.
I couldn't help but feel uneasy watching the show, it was worse after I visited their website. At least one person has died because of that show, a person who committed suicide while police came to arrest him after a series of those chat sessions.
What problem do I have with this show?
You see, I've met so many people online I wont say I've seen it all, hopefully I've not but I have seen a lot and I know what some people are capable of throwing at you. But I've also seen something that those people at Perverted-Justice will probably never see. I've seen men going from the lowest low of online sexual solicitation to actually asking me to forgive them. There is a least one person who became my friend after such an episode but it only happen for two reasons:
1) I never responded positively to any of his solicitations
2) I got seriously mad at him
I actively discouraged him in pursuing such a relationship with me and he knew he would be off my list if he continued.
I believe everyone has at least one low point in his life, hey I have quite a few myself but I also believe that you should help people rise but not fall.
I also believe that many people lead a fantasy life when they are online, it's the virtual world and anything is possible but it stays in the virtual world and they know it's not possible in the real world until someone comes along and tell them that it is and that's exactly what the Perverted-Justice people teamed up with Dateline are telling those men, "No, it doesn't have to stay in the virtual world anymore, now you have a chance to live this fantasy for real."
Even though it's all filmed in the US, I've seen many foreigners show up to meet the home-alone kid they met online, some were asian. When I watched them and listened to what they had to say, they reminded me of some of the people I've met online myself, I couldn't help but think that this was the kind of thing that could happen to them and I couldn't help but feel sorry for those men -not for all of them though-.
Moreover, I've not seen Dateline or Perverted-Justice address the matter of how to protect the children from predators. I'm not denying that there are predators on the internet preying over children but if a child could have the exact same behavior as the Perverted Justice volunteer in chat rooms I believe those children need help and they need it urgently because they will certainly be victims of predators. I don't know if they had done this in previous episodes but I didn't see them say "parents this is how you can protect your children from online predators now that you know that they do exist and that you've seen some of their faces".
Finally, how about the "predators" themselves. Is anything being done to help them, surely they do need help because they will find themselves on the internet again and potentially will meet other children online, what is done to take the predator out of those men? Does Dateline even believe that is necessary?
What is Dateline trying to achieve with "To Catch a Predator"?
Are they trying to warn parents? Warn children? Scare predators? Humiliate a group of men on television ? Or just make more money? Are they helping the community or are they just helping themselves?
One thing is for sure, the show was a success with the audience, so much that it has been copied. America's Most Wanted has teamed up with Miss America herself to make a show that's similar to Dateline's "To Catch a Predator". I've not watched it, therefore I can't say in which way the two shows differ but from what I've seen in the previews and commentaries from the people behind it, I'm not expecting any better.
For parents reading this, do monitor your children's online activities, protect them and help them protect themselves.
Notes: I've gone through Dateline's website again and they do have links for parents and children and for potential predators.
A few links :
Blogcritics Magazine - Thoughts on Dateline's "To Catch a Predator"
The New Republic - Behind "Dateline"'s icky hidden camera series
Internet Safety News - Amy's Story
Related Posts:
Meeting People Online - Part I
Meeting people Offline - part I
Meeting people Offline - part II
Meeting People Offline - part III
The premise of the show is as follows. The people of Dateline team up with a group called 'Perverted-Justice'. They have volunteers from Perverted Justice posing as a 12,13, or 16 year old [age varies] and meeting adult men [as in 18 and up]. The volunteers pose as either boys or girls. They enter chat rooms typically and eventually meet with older men who are very interested in them. The chatting soon becomes very sexually explicit. If you're a woman and have ever met people in chat rooms you know how things can get and what type of conversations most of those people lead. If you're a man you're either one of those people or have no idea what I'm talking about...
After chatting for a while and sometimes even exchanging pictures, the fake kid and the potential predator arrange a meeting a the kid's house. The fake kid tells the potential predator that he/she'll be home alone, so it's a golden opportunity for them to meet. Then they would chat about what he'll do when he gets there. - It does not always go on like this but I just wanted you to have an idea, to know what they chat about visit Dateline's web site.-
Those men are so clueless. But the unreal part of all this is the "child. Never any disgust nor anger no matter what the guy throws at her. That "child" is so willing and going along with absolutely all the men are saying, and telling them that she's home alone is just unreal. A child who does such a thing needs serious help. I really have a hard time imagining any teen ager doing such a thing unless he/she has major issues or really huge problems at home. I've met quite a few young chatters online and they don't disclose their personal information to the new comers just like that. When you think of it, it's really twisted. You can see some videos and transcripts of the show their website.
I couldn't help but feel uneasy watching the show, it was worse after I visited their website. At least one person has died because of that show, a person who committed suicide while police came to arrest him after a series of those chat sessions.
What problem do I have with this show?
You see, I've met so many people online I wont say I've seen it all, hopefully I've not but I have seen a lot and I know what some people are capable of throwing at you. But I've also seen something that those people at Perverted-Justice will probably never see. I've seen men going from the lowest low of online sexual solicitation to actually asking me to forgive them. There is a least one person who became my friend after such an episode but it only happen for two reasons:
1) I never responded positively to any of his solicitations
2) I got seriously mad at him
I actively discouraged him in pursuing such a relationship with me and he knew he would be off my list if he continued.
I believe everyone has at least one low point in his life, hey I have quite a few myself but I also believe that you should help people rise but not fall.
I also believe that many people lead a fantasy life when they are online, it's the virtual world and anything is possible but it stays in the virtual world and they know it's not possible in the real world until someone comes along and tell them that it is and that's exactly what the Perverted-Justice people teamed up with Dateline are telling those men, "No, it doesn't have to stay in the virtual world anymore, now you have a chance to live this fantasy for real."
Even though it's all filmed in the US, I've seen many foreigners show up to meet the home-alone kid they met online, some were asian. When I watched them and listened to what they had to say, they reminded me of some of the people I've met online myself, I couldn't help but think that this was the kind of thing that could happen to them and I couldn't help but feel sorry for those men -not for all of them though-.
Moreover, I've not seen Dateline or Perverted-Justice address the matter of how to protect the children from predators. I'm not denying that there are predators on the internet preying over children but if a child could have the exact same behavior as the Perverted Justice volunteer in chat rooms I believe those children need help and they need it urgently because they will certainly be victims of predators. I don't know if they had done this in previous episodes but I didn't see them say "parents this is how you can protect your children from online predators now that you know that they do exist and that you've seen some of their faces".
Finally, how about the "predators" themselves. Is anything being done to help them, surely they do need help because they will find themselves on the internet again and potentially will meet other children online, what is done to take the predator out of those men? Does Dateline even believe that is necessary?
What is Dateline trying to achieve with "To Catch a Predator"?
Are they trying to warn parents? Warn children? Scare predators? Humiliate a group of men on television ? Or just make more money? Are they helping the community or are they just helping themselves?
One thing is for sure, the show was a success with the audience, so much that it has been copied. America's Most Wanted has teamed up with Miss America herself to make a show that's similar to Dateline's "To Catch a Predator". I've not watched it, therefore I can't say in which way the two shows differ but from what I've seen in the previews and commentaries from the people behind it, I'm not expecting any better.
For parents reading this, do monitor your children's online activities, protect them and help them protect themselves.
Notes: I've gone through Dateline's website again and they do have links for parents and children and for potential predators.
A few links :
Blogcritics Magazine - Thoughts on Dateline's "To Catch a Predator"
The New Republic - Behind "Dateline"'s icky hidden camera series
Internet Safety News - Amy's Story
Related Posts:
Meeting People Online - Part I
Meeting people Offline - part I
Meeting people Offline - part II
Meeting People Offline - part III
Friday, September 22, 2006
Crisscross Network
I've [finally] found another website to meet people online for free, Crisscross Network. It allows you to have a detailed profile with photos. You also can search their database to find people you'd be interested in. The "network" side of it allows you to add people as contacts/friends. It reminds me of Friendster except that it's much more sober and it's not designed to build a network with people you already know but to actually find new people. At the time of writing this, the service is 100% free and without any ads.
As for my own [unusual] experience with it. I joined, created my brief-not-well-thought-out-photoless profile and within minutes (or was it hours???) someone wrote me. On the very first day we wrote each other twice, promising isn't it?
What does the Crisscoss website have that the others don't? First of all, it's free, many website will offer you the exact same service only with a paid membership. It's not crowded with commercials like many other sites offering these services for free. It's coupled with a news site from which you can get news from the USA or Japan. You can write down your goals and check when you've achieved them. I'm only discovering the features since I've only been a member for a few days but the interaction among the members seems promising.
Tags: crisscross friends
As for my own [unusual] experience with it. I joined, created my brief-not-well-thought-out-photoless profile and within minutes (or was it hours???) someone wrote me. On the very first day we wrote each other twice, promising isn't it?
What does the Crisscoss website have that the others don't? First of all, it's free, many website will offer you the exact same service only with a paid membership. It's not crowded with commercials like many other sites offering these services for free. It's coupled with a news site from which you can get news from the USA or Japan. You can write down your goals and check when you've achieved them. I'm only discovering the features since I've only been a member for a few days but the interaction among the members seems promising.
Tags: crisscross friends
Friday, September 08, 2006
Friendster, Hi5 and Orkut
Have you ever heard of Hi5? No? Maybe you've heard of Friendster? Neither? Orkut maybe? Nay? You're kidding right....
They are social networking websites. They typically allow you to have a profile, a photo album, an online journal etc... Their particularity lies in the fact that you can "connect" to your friends and your friends’ friends hence the networking part. As far as the networking part is concerned, those sites are very powerful, amazingly powerful. You're wondering what this old school buddy of yours you haven't seen in over 10 years have become? Chances are he kept in touch with someone who's a relative of a good friend of one of your friends’ friends and he's connected to him on Hi5 or Friendster and what do you know, while you're browsing your friend's friends' network you come across his profile and that's where you see he's grown a full beard and has married his long time girlfriend -or whatever it is that you find out that he's been up to-
I have a Friendster account and not one but two Hi5 accounts and also an Orkut account - thank you Dozy ;) -.
Most of my friends as in real life friends from Haiti are on Hi5. In fact there is a really large number of Haitians on Hi5, young, old, if they have an email that they actually use, it is very likely that they are also on Hi5 where they usually take the time to put a few pictures and write about themselves, it's amazing I've come across profiles of old classmates I had not seen in years.... If you are Haitian Hi5 is the social networking site for you.
Friendster? It’s more of the same but where are the Haitians? They’re all on Hi5 so you will find very few of them on Friendster. Of all the people located in Haiti that are on Friendster the vast majority is not Haitian.
I've come to Friendster completely by "accident" and if you go on my profile now you'll see that I don't even have a single friend but and it's a major BUT, somehow I managed to meet one person on there. Actually I probably should say, somehow someone managed to find me... I've only been contacted by a few people on Friendster, a hand is too much to count them but only one actually was interested in staying in touch with me and ultimately meeting me! He's from Sri Lanka and he's working here in Haiti. We communicate mostly via email. We're supposed to meet in the weeks to come. - Don’t get any ideas now…-
Nevertheless, those websites are not for meeting people - even if they claim otherwise-, yes it might happen since they allow you not only to view the profiles of other members but also to contact them and all this absolutely free. The only "problem" is that most of those members are not there to meet new people. No, they are there to keep in touch with their friends, people they already know. Therefore, if you try initiating contact with a person you do not know he/she will most likely not answer you or respond negatively. On Hi5 I never accept requests or answer messages from people I don't recognize unless it's a woman.
As for Orkut, it's a quite "closed" environment and I've not seem advertisement so it's rather sober. I've not been an Orkut member for long but I have one friend and as you've guessed it, it's Dozy. Also I've come across Sudhu's profile -how? I don't remember- but he is distantly connected to me via Dozy's network, which means he knows people who know people who know people [...] who know Dozy, at least that's what Orkut says.
Of the people I've mentioned on this blog, you can spot Nick on Friendster, Sudhu on Orkut, Dozy on Orkut and Hi5 , Basam on Hi5, Ravi on Hi5.
They are social networking websites. They typically allow you to have a profile, a photo album, an online journal etc... Their particularity lies in the fact that you can "connect" to your friends and your friends’ friends hence the networking part. As far as the networking part is concerned, those sites are very powerful, amazingly powerful. You're wondering what this old school buddy of yours you haven't seen in over 10 years have become? Chances are he kept in touch with someone who's a relative of a good friend of one of your friends’ friends and he's connected to him on Hi5 or Friendster and what do you know, while you're browsing your friend's friends' network you come across his profile and that's where you see he's grown a full beard and has married his long time girlfriend -or whatever it is that you find out that he's been up to-
I have a Friendster account and not one but two Hi5 accounts and also an Orkut account - thank you Dozy ;) -.
Most of my friends as in real life friends from Haiti are on Hi5. In fact there is a really large number of Haitians on Hi5, young, old, if they have an email that they actually use, it is very likely that they are also on Hi5 where they usually take the time to put a few pictures and write about themselves, it's amazing I've come across profiles of old classmates I had not seen in years.... If you are Haitian Hi5 is the social networking site for you.
Friendster? It’s more of the same but where are the Haitians? They’re all on Hi5 so you will find very few of them on Friendster. Of all the people located in Haiti that are on Friendster the vast majority is not Haitian.
I've come to Friendster completely by "accident" and if you go on my profile now you'll see that I don't even have a single friend but and it's a major BUT, somehow I managed to meet one person on there. Actually I probably should say, somehow someone managed to find me... I've only been contacted by a few people on Friendster, a hand is too much to count them but only one actually was interested in staying in touch with me and ultimately meeting me! He's from Sri Lanka and he's working here in Haiti. We communicate mostly via email. We're supposed to meet in the weeks to come. - Don’t get any ideas now…-
Nevertheless, those websites are not for meeting people - even if they claim otherwise-, yes it might happen since they allow you not only to view the profiles of other members but also to contact them and all this absolutely free. The only "problem" is that most of those members are not there to meet new people. No, they are there to keep in touch with their friends, people they already know. Therefore, if you try initiating contact with a person you do not know he/she will most likely not answer you or respond negatively. On Hi5 I never accept requests or answer messages from people I don't recognize unless it's a woman.
As for Orkut, it's a quite "closed" environment and I've not seem advertisement so it's rather sober. I've not been an Orkut member for long but I have one friend and as you've guessed it, it's Dozy. Also I've come across Sudhu's profile -how? I don't remember- but he is distantly connected to me via Dozy's network, which means he knows people who know people who know people [...] who know Dozy, at least that's what Orkut says.
Of the people I've mentioned on this blog, you can spot Nick on Friendster, Sudhu on Orkut, Dozy on Orkut and Hi5 , Basam on Hi5, Ravi on Hi5.
Tuesday, December 06, 2005
Meeting people online - part I
The name change of my blog brought people with new queries like "meeting people online" or "how to meet people online". I though I'd write a bit on the topic.
Meeting people is one of the easiest things to do online, it's even some people's favorite online activity. In fact when it comes to meeting people online, the most valuable information is not the how-to but rather the what-to-avoid. To the younger readers I recommend this article about online meetings, read it before you read the rest of this post.
If you want to find a person to exchange emails with I will recommend Penpalnet.com, it's a completely free service, you are able to search people and contact them or be contacted by them for free.
They have a very large database and if you log regularly on the site your profile will appear on top of other user's searches provided they are looking for a person with your profile, and thus you will be contacted by a certain number of people. Keep in mind that it's a free service, there are a few limitations, you can only search people by age and/or sex and/or location. Typically the top results will be that of other users who've logged in the most recently -they do not say this explicitly-. The age range of members is very wide. They do not give you information on the last login time of the users, which would be convenient at least you would know who has been active lately. There are no photos on profiles (but that shouldn't be a problem...). A friend told me there is a limit to the number of messages you may send on a single day. When you write a reply to a message you don't have the possibility to view the original message unless you've copied it on a text editor or opened it in another window/tab. Be careful if you log in everyday you might want to make your profile invisible otherwise you might have a few new people contacting you weekly. Of course you might be one of those fortunate who do not mind starting (and keeping) new e-friendships on a weekly basis. I know I’m not one of those.
Penpalnet.com is completely free, it's simple and easy to use, and they have a very large number of users. With a little patience and persistence you might just find the type of person you are looking for.
If you are mostly interested in meeting people from Asia and are willing to pay a little I will recommend another service I've used for a while, it's called Teletextfriends (it's based in Singapore), or rather I would recommend the clone service Worldfriends (with the same user data base but with the added option to send smiles to people you are interested in contacting, actually it seems Teletextfriends is Worldfriend’s clone).
A large number of members do take the time to fill out their detailed profile and to add a picture, they also provide and indication of whether another member is compatible with you based on the information provided on both of your profiles regarding what each other is looking for. But, in order to send messages to people you must be a premium member. A non-premium member may contact you only if you have purchased an open membership, which is different from regular membership. A premium member is not necessarily an open club member. The advantage of open club is that it allows other members who "find" you to initiate contact. The system tells you when other members view your profile, you always know who's looking at you. If you use these services I recommend you take the necessary time to fill out your profile as completely as possible.
If you want a meeting method that's faster than the two I've mentioned so far consider using Instant Messaging (IM) programs.
Yahoo! Messenger allows the users who are over 18 to access public chat rooms. The chat rooms are grouped by theme. Once you are inside a room you may join or initiate a conversation with others inside the room or even exchange instant messages with those that I've enabled that feature -by default you are not able to receive IMs from people who are not on your contact list you have to enable the feature in your preferences- . Depending on your profile or on whether you are chatting inside the room and depending on the population of that room other users might receive [too] many IMs. Be aware of the presents of "bots" in practically all the Yahoo! chat rooms. Bots? Yes, programs that are conceived to masquerade as people, most of them have female IDs, sometimes they might even come in pairs chatting inside the room etc... They will send you IM, most of the time, it's a link DO NOT CLICK the link. Ignore the user. A real person will (should) be decent enough to say "hi" (or some equivalent) first.
You can also search for people to chat with in Yahoo!'s members directory. I recommend filling out your Yahoo! profile with at least the basic information i.e. age and sex, no need to put your home address or anything like that. You might also consider putting a picture. Keep in mind that if you are a woman, and you put a picture on your profile with your age and location then any given time your status is "online" you are likely to receive IMs from people (men) in your area -at least that's what happens to me-. Try using advance search for better results.
ICQ is also another IM program you can use, it allows you to search for online users based on their profile (age, sex, interests, location etc..). It's pretty efficient, though it's critical that you fill your profile so the other users can know you are a real person otherwise they might think you are a bot and not accept your messages.
As long as you have the possibility to write/chat with another person on the web whether is because he/she put his/her contact information on a web page or whether you are both a member of a certain web community, there is the possibility to start an e-relationship that might lead to a lasting friendship.
As for meeting your future spouse online, yes it might happen but this is not what this post was all about. Right?
Tags: meeting people online
Meeting people is one of the easiest things to do online, it's even some people's favorite online activity. In fact when it comes to meeting people online, the most valuable information is not the how-to but rather the what-to-avoid. To the younger readers I recommend this article about online meetings, read it before you read the rest of this post.
If you want to find a person to exchange emails with I will recommend Penpalnet.com, it's a completely free service, you are able to search people and contact them or be contacted by them for free.
They have a very large database and if you log regularly on the site your profile will appear on top of other user's searches provided they are looking for a person with your profile, and thus you will be contacted by a certain number of people. Keep in mind that it's a free service, there are a few limitations, you can only search people by age and/or sex and/or location. Typically the top results will be that of other users who've logged in the most recently -they do not say this explicitly-. The age range of members is very wide. They do not give you information on the last login time of the users, which would be convenient at least you would know who has been active lately. There are no photos on profiles (but that shouldn't be a problem...). A friend told me there is a limit to the number of messages you may send on a single day. When you write a reply to a message you don't have the possibility to view the original message unless you've copied it on a text editor or opened it in another window/tab. Be careful if you log in everyday you might want to make your profile invisible otherwise you might have a few new people contacting you weekly. Of course you might be one of those fortunate who do not mind starting (and keeping) new e-friendships on a weekly basis. I know I’m not one of those.
Penpalnet.com is completely free, it's simple and easy to use, and they have a very large number of users. With a little patience and persistence you might just find the type of person you are looking for.
If you are mostly interested in meeting people from Asia and are willing to pay a little I will recommend another service I've used for a while, it's called Teletextfriends (it's based in Singapore), or rather I would recommend the clone service Worldfriends (with the same user data base but with the added option to send smiles to people you are interested in contacting, actually it seems Teletextfriends is Worldfriend’s clone).
A large number of members do take the time to fill out their detailed profile and to add a picture, they also provide and indication of whether another member is compatible with you based on the information provided on both of your profiles regarding what each other is looking for. But, in order to send messages to people you must be a premium member. A non-premium member may contact you only if you have purchased an open membership, which is different from regular membership. A premium member is not necessarily an open club member. The advantage of open club is that it allows other members who "find" you to initiate contact. The system tells you when other members view your profile, you always know who's looking at you. If you use these services I recommend you take the necessary time to fill out your profile as completely as possible.
If you want a meeting method that's faster than the two I've mentioned so far consider using Instant Messaging (IM) programs.
Yahoo! Messenger allows the users who are over 18 to access public chat rooms. The chat rooms are grouped by theme. Once you are inside a room you may join or initiate a conversation with others inside the room or even exchange instant messages with those that I've enabled that feature -by default you are not able to receive IMs from people who are not on your contact list you have to enable the feature in your preferences- . Depending on your profile or on whether you are chatting inside the room and depending on the population of that room other users might receive [too] many IMs. Be aware of the presents of "bots" in practically all the Yahoo! chat rooms. Bots? Yes, programs that are conceived to masquerade as people, most of them have female IDs, sometimes they might even come in pairs chatting inside the room etc... They will send you IM, most of the time, it's a link DO NOT CLICK the link. Ignore the user. A real person will (should) be decent enough to say "hi" (or some equivalent) first.
You can also search for people to chat with in Yahoo!'s members directory. I recommend filling out your Yahoo! profile with at least the basic information i.e. age and sex, no need to put your home address or anything like that. You might also consider putting a picture. Keep in mind that if you are a woman, and you put a picture on your profile with your age and location then any given time your status is "online" you are likely to receive IMs from people (men) in your area -at least that's what happens to me-. Try using advance search for better results.
ICQ is also another IM program you can use, it allows you to search for online users based on their profile (age, sex, interests, location etc..). It's pretty efficient, though it's critical that you fill your profile so the other users can know you are a real person otherwise they might think you are a bot and not accept your messages.
As long as you have the possibility to write/chat with another person on the web whether is because he/she put his/her contact information on a web page or whether you are both a member of a certain web community, there is the possibility to start an e-relationship that might lead to a lasting friendship.
As for meeting your future spouse online, yes it might happen but this is not what this post was all about. Right?
Tags: meeting people online
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