Online Friends

Good Morning everyone.

It's Monday morning, and I'm in London. I'm here for a few days on a Disaster Recovery(DR) exercise. We practice getting our servers and databases running on a site where we have nothing. This is on the off chance something happens to the datacentre in our building, or one of the other datacentres.

So far there's nothing for me to do here at DR, as I'm waiting for other teams to do their stuff before I can do mine. I've been online and tidied up all my email accounts, something I should have done a long time ago.

As you all are probably aware, I've been on a bit of a mission recently to make some new online friends, or girlies. I like the idea of having lots of good friends all around the world, that I can talk to, and maybe even go and visit sometime.

In an effort to achieve this, I've become a member of a few 'friend' sites. It's difficult to remember which ones I'm a member of, and which ones are any good, so I've decided to write a mini-review of them. It's mostly for my benefit, so I can use this post to keep track of my memberships, but it's also a good way for you to track me down. I'm a member of all the sites on the list below, and my username on most of them is Ryaninja.

Hi 5:

• This site seems to be a bog standard friend site. The interface is fairly straightforward and easy to use, but not terribly inspiring. It has the standard gallery and blogging type features. One thing I like is the testimonial feature - you can write about your friends. This gives me a good excuse to write stupid stuff about people I know.
  Here's a testimonial I wrote about Jamie, for example. It's not hosted on Hi5, cos the link requires you to log in to hi5 before you can read the testimonial.
  
  I haven't been a member of this site for long (maybe a few weeks) and I only had a couple of pictures up, but already I've made a new friend. She's called Pum, a Thai girl living in New York. I haven't actually spoken to her directly yet, but I might drop her a message after I'm done here. I've noticed that Thai and Malaysian people are very friendly online, and seem very keen on meeting new people.

Lets D8:

• Let's D8 is actually a pay site, although it doesn't tell you this until you sign up. It's also a bit like 'real-life porn' as they allow nekkid pictures of people. It's always interesting looking up naked chicks in your city. Unfortunately this site doesn't have a lot of free features, most are available once you sign up. I have no friends on this site yet, but I get the feeling that most of the people on there are there primarily for sex, so if I do get contacted, then things could get interesting!

Multiply:

• I like multiply. It's probably one of the best friend sites out there, although probably isn't the best dating site. It's really good for keeping all your digital content on here, from pictures, and videos, to your own music and blogs. It offers unlimited storage, and your own home page (http://YOURNAME.multiply.com). The network structure (how your friends connect together) is advanced but simple to use, and site is very intuitive. I've not made many friends by via this site, but in all true fairness, I haven't really used it that much. It would be better if I could link directly to the pictures on here, so I could use them for this blog, but I have my .mac account for that, so it's not the end of the world. I bestow high praises upon this site.

Flickr:

• I haven't used this much. It incorporates basic friend tools with a decent photo gallery/organiser. I'll probably start using this more, as it does specify that you can use your photos for nearly any blog. When I can't upload to my .mac account (special tools required), it would be most useful to be able to use this.
  EDIT: I've just tested it - you set up your blog details, and then it's very easy to post to it from Flickr. I like it! This ups the rating from 'pretty good' to 'recommended'. I'd even say 'highly recommended', if you have a blog.

Friendster:

• Friendster is pretty well used and quite popular from what I gather. I've had the most requests for friendship on this site so far, although it's not my favourite site, but I couldn't tell you why. I've probably had my most amount of friend requests from this place. It has all the usual features, including groups that you can join to discuss anything. I'm a member of 2 naruto groups, and one group called 'Are you a Ninja or a Pirate?'. I spent a large amount of time mulling over this very question. Then I realised that I was neither, and both. As I've mentioned before, it's good to be an Evil Ninja Robot Pirate from the future, providing it doesn't stop you from joining groups that demand you're one or the other. Avast Me Hearties!

FaceParty:

• This site is quite good, for a pay site. The free version allows you to view people's pictures and do a lot of the basic stuff you'd expect. The interface isn't particularly nice, but that's just my opinion. If you pay for adult verification, you can also view nudie photos of girls, and has nice features for searching, such as only looking for people with adult pics. There seems to be a lot of English people on this site, in comparison to some of the others, some of which have a much higher Asian community.

Ok Cupid:

• Ok Cupid was the first of these sites I joined. It's also one of my favourites. It has a nice workable interface, and is fun to peruse. The site also incorporates a unique matching system that the other sites match. You answer questions submitted by members and from the site's admins too, and then matches you up with people based upon this. My favourite question on there so far is "could you ever date a giant carnivorous reptile?". I said Yes, as I believe as long as it had a nice personality and was female, then why not?!? I don't want to narrow my chances of pulling too much. Okcupid is funny, and more importantly, free.

So... There you have it! If you think I've missed any off that you're particularly fanatical about, then send me the details, and I might join! If I join, then I'll write a review, and everybody will be happy, except that girl with the clap who's pussy seems to be blowing smoke signals.

EDIT: I have a couple of other sites to add to the list:

Adult Friend Finder:

• I didn't realise I was actually a member of this site, although I've just had an email from them, so I guess I am! This isn't a great site. The interface isn't brilliant, and it bugs the hell out of me that you can't do anything on this site without a membership that you have to pay REAL MONEY for.
  However, this site seems to have more naked women than any other I've visited! Well, it has more members who are willing to upload nekkid photos of themselves on there anyway. But you can only see thumbnails as a basic(free) member.

My Space:

• Ok, Foss suggested it, but I shunned it, because I can't get to it from work. However, I can get to it from disaster recovery. Once I'd seen it, I knew I had to join. I don't like it as much as Multiply, but this one seems to be used by quite a few people in this part of the world, so I yoinked myself a membership. I'll have to use it for longer before I make a decision though. However, the interface isn't quite as easy to get along with as some of the others (I keep feeling like I need to look for what section I need, instead of being able to find it easily), but it offers some good advanced features, and a level of customisation greater than most of the pay sites here, in terms of personalising how it all looks in MySpace. This isn't always a good thing though, as I've seen some truly hideous designs on some people's profiles...

The list is getting quite long now. Sooner or later I might make some friends I can meet in real life!