Not since maybe '96 have I felt so excited about a technology actually impacting my life.

I got on Friendster about a week ago. If you don't know what it is, go check it out, I am not going to sit here and type a whole epic about it. I just want to say this: like many networks, it is growing exponentially, and its power is proportionally intense.

Roz "introduced" me to a girl on the site last week, and we chatted a bit and made a "friend date." We're both relatively recent to SF and looking for new girlfriends. So last night I went to her video salon party and not only did we totally hit it off, but we had stuff to talk about from the get go, and by the end of the night I'd met 4 of her friends and been offered a freelance job.

Granted, part of my experience stemmed from the natural amazing friendliness of this particular woman. But other great things are happening too. A Jewish South African woman who is a college student at SFState sent me an email because she saw that I work in the Jewish community and she wrote to ask my advice about how to talk about her Judaism with students on that notoriously charged campus. She has no Jewish friends in San Francisco and seems just really in need of someone to listen to her. We're having lunch next week.

Some people are worried that the "quality" of people and thus the network will go downhill as the site gets bigger and bigger. I'm not sure if that's true or not. I *can* say that I'm getting a fair bit of random email, but to date it has been fun and inspiring. If it turns into an avalanche of crap, or of spam, obviously my feelings about the network will change.

Anyway, I just wanted to share my happy afterglow and see if anyone else is having as good a time as I have. It feels good to have a great, and new, Net experience again.