Follow Slashdot stories on Twitter

 


Forgot your password?
Close
typodupeerror
×
The Internet

Do You Really Want to Meet People on the Web? 256

Posted by CmdrTaco from the not-really-but-thanks dept.
Wolfspelz writes "Do you want to meet people on Web pages? The Jabber Virtual Presence project makes people aware of each other on the Web. Just like you are aware of other people in the real world anywhere you go, the virtual presence makes you aware of others on the same virtual locations. The project uses Jabber/XMPP as the transport protocol for virtual presence. Jabber conference components serve as presence servers. The code is GPL/LGPL. The Virtual Presence Protocol extensions are open and documented. The virtual presence system including the LLuna2 client is designed to protect the privacy and prohibit any indecent use, be it commercial use, advertising, or profiling. But: do you want to meet people on the Web at all?"
This discussion has been archived. No new comments can be posted.

Do You Really Want to Meet People on the Web? More

Do You Really Want to Meet People on the Web?

Comments Filter:

  • I don't think so (Score:5, Funny)

    by ralf1 ( 718128 ) on Tuesday June 08, 2004 @09:00AM (#9364774)
    I don't want to meet people who need the web to meet people.

    • Re:I don't think so (Score:5, Funny)

      by Timesprout ( 579035 ) on Tuesday June 08, 2004 @09:07AM (#9364840)
      You obviously have not seen many webpages of those lonely 18 year old cheerleaders desperately looking to meet someone.

    • Re:I don't think so (Score:5, Insightful)

      by AviLazar ( 741826 ) on Tuesday June 08, 2004 @09:08AM (#9364851) Journal
      Why not? It is just another medium to meet people. In fact it can sometimes be better. You might get to know the person, and like the person so that you would want to meet the person. This does not have to be for romance, but could be for friends. Back in the day when local BBS' were big - we would have get-to-gethers. I never did it to try and go out with a girl, but it was nice to meet the people I would play MUD's with. I have met a number of people from the web. Some nice, some not so nice. Some extremely hot, some extremely not :) I think it is a new medium - nothing wrong with it. People use newspaper ads, bars, clubs, parks, restaurants. Others may not have the time (i have been in this position) to go and hang out at these places all the time.

      • Re:I don't think so (Score:3, Funny)

        by Anonymous Coward
        People use newspaper ads, bars, clubs, parks, restaurants.

        Don't forget toilet walls. I prefer toilet walls.

      • Not really (Score:2, Insightful)

        by essreenim ( 647659 )
        When you meet someone face to face, there is much more polite and civil (hopefully) openings.

        It is more genuine.
        The person in an internet chatroom could be
        a paedophile for all I know. I can't use my intuition to determine this because there IS no presence. This is just another fad that would waist my time.
        I don't believe in on-line presence.
        If its not someone I already know in person, I would rather talk to AI online - honestly!

        • Re:Not really (Score:5, Insightful)

          by AviLazar ( 741826 ) on Tuesday June 08, 2004 @10:44AM (#9365925) Journal
          Really, and the person you meet at a bar, park, restaurant, club, etc.. cannot be a paedophile? The fact that there is no presence makes the interaction safer. You can chat with the person for months, and then chat with the person on the phone, and if you continue to proceed to meet the person face to face, you are better off (much better) then if you just randomly met the person on the "street." At least, utilizing the Internet method, you have some time you can attempt to get to know the person - on the street, if the person is psychotic, you may have very little warning. To assume psychopaths only proliferate on the internet is naive and wrong. Your example is sorely lacking. And your statement about being "genuine" lacks evidence. In fact, people are more blunt on the Internet because they have a certain sense of protection - hence people are more willing to speak their mind. While some people cannot control their emotions and decide to lash out, many people utilize this form of communication as a way to voice their, legitimate opinions, without feeling pressured due to society rules. That is VERY genuine.

          • Re:Not really (Score:3, Funny)

            by gfody ( 514448 )
            also.. the people you meet on the internet tend to be sober. people you meet at bars/parties/wherever tend to be drunk (at least tipsy enough to make an otherwise inverted character talk to strangers).

            my problem with meeting people on the internet is that they tend to be overweight and ugly :\

            • also.. the people you meet on the internet tend to be sober. people you meet at bars/parties/wherever tend to be drunk (at least tipsy enough to make an otherwise inverted character talk to strangers).

              Obviously we haven't met ;)

              I'm not sure why you think that people you meet online tend to be sober... Hell I find it harder to tell if they are drunk or sober and normally don't care. They are either pleasant to interact with or they aren't.

              Online you don't know if they are just a cheerful person or have a

        • Re:Not really (Score:3, Interesting)

          by NanoGator ( 522640 )
          "I can't use my intuition to determine this because there IS no presence."

          Not true. You'd be surprised how hard it is to be convincing about anything on-line. I'll never forget when this guy was bugging me for ops. He tried to lure a favor from me by pretending to be female. "I have big hooters!" Yeah, that's exactly how women talk.

          "I don't believe in on-line presence."

          Again, I think you'd be surprised. Heck, look at Slashdot. We've got some real characters here. Go check out the forums.
      • > You might get to know the person, and like the person so that you would want to meet the person.

        Exactly. In fact, I met my wife on a local BBS--we started dating after meeting in person at several get-togethers. We've been married for over seven years now.

        (Of course, we still get on IRC on separate computers in separate rooms, but we prefer to think of that as a charming quirk.)
        • You could always find out what chat room she is in, come on in, and bluntly hit on her and watch the other IRC members oogle at your bravado :) good for you on meeting your wife this way - things like that (open-mindedness) make me feel that there is hope for our world :)

    • Re:I don't think so (Score:5, Funny)

      by xmas2003 ( 739875 ) on Tuesday June 08, 2004 @09:12AM (#9364875) Homepage
      HEY ... better to meet people on the web that say, on the road - how would you like to meet this guy who got caught Nose Picken' on Photo Radar [komar.org] ;-)

    • Re:I don't think so (Score:5, Insightful)

      by Alien54 ( 180860 ) on Tuesday June 08, 2004 @09:15AM (#9364916) Journal
      On the other hand:

      But: do you want to meet people on the Web at all?"

      could easily be rendered as:

      But: do you want to meet people at all?"

      For a lot of people, this involves some sort of a negative answer, one way or another. Some folks have a low tolerance of human beings, depending on circumstances.

    • Re:I don't think so (Score:4, Funny)

      by sosegumu ( 696957 ) on Tuesday June 08, 2004 @09:25AM (#9364997)

      I don't want to meet people who need the web to meet people.

      What!!! Just think of all those hot girlz waiting to be invited back to our mothers' basements to see our newest modded gaming pc!

    • Re:I don't think so (Score:3, Interesting)

      by joeldg ( 518249 )
      Hahaha..

      I am working with a team of people to extend FOAF and social networks to help you "keep-track" of your current friends and what it going on with them. I.e. current GPS coordinates, utilizing the MeNowDocument at http://schema.peoplesdns.com/menow/ (which I co-authored) and auto-updating FOAF data through the web for everything from current pictures to current locations (you can even go as far as scripting in which mp3 you are listening to or what webpage you are browsing and this all is updated au
    • The virtual presence system including the LLuna2 client is designed to protect the privacy and prohibit any indecent use(...)

      And what's the point of meeting people on the web if indecent use is prohibited? Oh my, the boredom of it all...

  • ...for an internal project with the Jabber4R [rubyforge.org] wrapper.

    Jabber ended up being too slow, though, so we built a more specialized message router in C++ [cougaar.org] - and open sourced it - to replace it.
      • Jabber ended up being too slow, though, so we built a more specialized message router ...
      While I understand the intended meaning -- that Jabber was not suitable for your application -- I dislike (1) the implication that Jabber is somehow inherently slow (what was slow? The Jabber4R client library? The Jabber server? Which server? Or the architecture?), and (2) the fact that you are providing no new information, but merely throwing out some vague, critical remark about Jabber of no use to anyone, leading up to a shameless plug for your own unrelated product. What was your point, man?

      How about doing a design comparison between Cougaar and Jabber?

      • > the implication that Jabber is
        > somehow inherently slow

        Hm. It was too slow for our purposes - i.e., passing large numbers of large messages around to track a distributed agent system. I'm sure it's fast enough for most uses.

        > The Jabber4R client library?

        Nope, that's fine.

        > The Jabber server?

        Yup.

        > Which server?

        The Java one, I think.

        > Or the architecture?

        Dunno about that.

        > critical remark

        Hm, didn't mean to be critical... just sharing experience.

        > a shameless plug for
        > your own unrelated product.

        It's not really a product, per se... I mean, it's open source and free.

        > What was your point, man?

        To share an experience with the Jabber server and offer a note on our workaround.

        > doing a design comparison between
        > Cougaar and Jabber?

        They're two different things - COUGAAR is a distributed agent architecture, Jabber is a messaging protocol. I'm not sure a comparison is really in order...
          • To share an experience with the Jabber server and offer a note on our workaround.

          With a Jabber server. I suspect you would have had greater success with the C server, btw. One nice aspect of the server architecture, incidentally, is that it can easily be clustered, meaning it is extremely scalable.

          • It's not really a product, per se... I mean, it's open source and free.

          While I dislike having to go into a discussion about language, I'd like to point that product [reference.com] implies neither "non-open-source" or "non

  • Of course not! (Score:5, Funny)

    by jazzmanjac ( 92458 ) on Tuesday June 08, 2004 @09:01AM (#9364784)
    That's why I'm on the internet to begin with... so I DON'T have to interact with other people. (Well, except for slashdot.)

  • no, I don't (Score:2, Interesting)

    by kwoff ( 516741 )
    Being aware of other people in real life is what makes me nervous and bashful. It's a Sartrean thing.

  • Natural Consequences (Score:5, Funny)

    by Judebert ( 147131 ) on Tuesday June 08, 2004 @09:02AM (#9364790) Homepage
    And of course, their #1 "topsite" is porn. Like we didn't know what it would be used for.

    No, I don't think I'm interested in listening to a bunch of space-hogging attention-whoring avatars while I surf, thanks.

  • Its vital (Score:5, Funny)

    by Timesprout ( 579035 ) on Tuesday June 08, 2004 @09:02AM (#9364791)
    that the tens of thousands of geeks out there can compete to meet with the one of the 2 geek girls in the world so the possibility of the uber geek child can become a reality.

  • You like /.? I Like /.? Funny we should meet here. (Score:5, Funny)

    by malakai ( 136531 ) * on Tuesday June 08, 2004 @09:03AM (#9364798) Journal
    You like Woman being fisted by donkeys? I like women being fisted by donkeys! Funny we should meet here. ... yeah i can see where this will lead ...

    Mom?!? Dad?!?! Little Timmy!?! What are you doing on donkeypunch.com!?!?

  • I'm all for it. (Score:5, Insightful)

    by bcore ( 705121 ) on Tuesday June 08, 2004 @09:04AM (#9364806)
    I'd say that the more opportunity to meet interesting people in this world, the better, and this just improves the odds of randomly meeting people your probably wouldn't otherwise have to opportunity to meet.

    As long as it doesn't supplant actual real world interaction with people as a primary social outlet, that is..

    • Re:I'm all for it. (Score:4, Interesting)

      by mwood ( 25379 ) on Tuesday June 08, 2004 @09:38AM (#9365123)
      I'm always puzzled by this sort of reaction. In what way is meeting on a Web page any less "real" than meeting at a bus stop or over the phone? The other person is just as real.

      • Re:I'm all for it. (Score:4, Insightful)

        by bcore ( 705121 ) on Tuesday June 08, 2004 @09:49AM (#9365242)
        I don't disagree, I've met many awesome people through various online things.. I've just found that there have been periods in my own life where I have become so involved with online communities that I didn't put the time into real-world interactions. I find that for me at least, this trap just leads to me not being happy in the real world, so I try to balance online and offline life. To each his/her own, of course..
        • In what way is your communications online, not real-world interactions?

          What difference is there between chatting online and talking on the phone, except a stupid snobbish attitude towards online communications?
          • If I'm communicating with someone that I know in the real world I consider online communications to be real-world communications.

            If I'm communicating with someone that I have never met, I consider that to not be real-world and for the communications themselves to be nothing more than a network game.

            When I was a kid I was in the online = real world camp. To put it shortly, it was not good for me. I trusted the wrong people and believed the wrong things and fortunately I came out of it without being kille
          • I guess the difference is that while friends you meet online are fun to chat with, you generally can't call them up on a friday night (or hell, a monday morning) to go out drinking, or whatever your definition of a fun time out is. :)
        • On a related note, look at my nick. I deliberately chose something nearly impossible to pronounce in order to keep my online and offline lives separate.

          Long story short, most of my real-life friends now call me Poeir. Go figure.

  • Virtual selling points (Score:5, Insightful)

    by 192939495969798999 ( 58312 ) <[info] [at] [devinmoore.com]> on Tuesday June 08, 2004 @09:05AM (#9364816) Homepage Journal
    All of these services are just an excuse to gather a huge number of e-mail addresses and connections between people, and then to use that network to market stuff. If there were a service that banned marketing and advertising messages, maybe it would be worth doing. As it is, it almost acts like the "in-crowd", where if you buy what they want, magically you're the most popular. However, so what if people want to meet people online? How is that worse than in an establishment serving alcohol, where everyone's not themselves anyhow?
    • All of these services are just an excuse to gather a huge number of e-mail addresses

      And how exactly are they going to do that? Jabber servers don't require an email address to create an account.

  • if it (Score:3, Insightful)

    by millahtime ( 710421 ) on Tuesday June 08, 2004 @09:05AM (#9364818) Homepage Journal
    If it was on the same level as Yahoo Messenger and AIM. There are a lot of different types of people that would be on there then. It would be a little different.

    My guess is that it is mostly nerds using it now. I work with thousands of nerds. Do I really need to meet any more near me?

  • Could be interesting... (Score:4, Interesting)

    by slusich ( 684826 ) <slusich@gm[ ].com ['ail' in gap]> on Tuesday June 08, 2004 @09:06AM (#9364831)
    While definately not the most obvious use of this software, it could prove interesting on sites such as /., cnn, salon etc. to talk live to others about an article. Posting comments is fine, but it's not live, and it could be days before anyone responds. It's certainly not something you'd leave running all the time.

  • Another nice social networking concept... (Score:4, Informative)

    by fugas ( 619989 ) on Tuesday June 08, 2004 @09:07AM (#9364837) Homepage
    Although I haven't downloaded this yet, it sounds like a fun social networking concept to me. Kind of a hybrid of the late Third Voice and the newer StumbleUpon [stumbleupon.com] (which I really love)

  • I for one.. (Score:4, Interesting)

    by hookedup ( 630460 ) on Tuesday June 08, 2004 @09:08AM (#9364845)
    Would much rather ask someone looking at the same website as me if they have seen what I'm looking for, instead of a site map.

    And no.. I dont go walking around the grocery store asking strangers where the broccoli is..
    • And no.. I dont go walking around the grocery store asking strangers where the broccoli is..

      Why not? Are you one of those assholes that stares blankly at me when I do? Yes ma'am, I am trying to kill you by asking where the broccoli is...

      What is wrong w/our communities when we want to study social networks via the web and we can't even have social networks IRL?

      Everyone is afraid of real life because the truth sucks. The bullshit personas people create for themselves on any of these Internet networks a

  • Sounds like Odigo (Score:5, Informative)

    by linuxtelephony ( 141049 ) on Tuesday June 08, 2004 @09:09AM (#9364858) Homepage
    Sounds like what Odigo [odigo.org] started out as about 5 or 6 years ago. They provided you with a display so you could see who else was at the web site you were visiting, then you could IM them if you wanted. There was more, like the ability to search for people, etc.

    However, the lluna interface looks more interesting.

  • More face to face interaction (Score:4, Interesting)

    by jcostantino ( 585892 ) on Tuesday June 08, 2004 @09:10AM (#9364864) Homepage
    Even though "online" has such a stigma attached to it, lots of people meet other people just fine. What if someone is severely handicapped and can't otherwise easily leave the house?

    I've met people socially who I met online, some were freaks and some were decent well adjusted people. It's the same as meeting people in the real world.

    I'll admit that I have a bit of social anxiety in person and it's easier for me to start a conversation with a total stranger online and to subsequently dip out on the conversation if I don't like the tone or direction :).

  • Wow, that's a pretty neat idea. I've been on a bunch of websites with a pretty active forum *ahem* but that's a little different than just chatting with passers-by.

    I really like the idea, and I'd use it on my own website.

    -Jesse

  • If i wanted to meet people (Score:3, Informative)

    by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday June 08, 2004 @09:12AM (#9364879)

    i would go down the pub/club/bar/gym/golf/beach/pool

    i have no desire to speak to hotSexyGal14 who is really a fat pasty guy from texas with a hygiene problem and reads comics thanks

  • The virtual presence system including the LLuna2 client is designed to protect the privacy and prohibit any indecent use, be it commercial use, advertising, or profiling. But: do you want to meet people on the Web at all?

    Wow, very negative. I don't understand such a knee-jerk bitter reaction. That should be right up there with "Do we really want to be on the Web anyway?" and "I don't know about these newfangled digital cameras; was anything really wrong with film?"
  • BonziBuddy!

    (that's what the little character looks like, anyway.) Serisouly, it looks like a neat concept though.

  • Virtual Places (Score:2, Interesting)

    by zifferent ( 656342 )
    A program called virtual places allowed you to surf the web and meet people 9 years ago.

    And then AOL bought it and killed it.

  • Now all I need... (Score:5, Funny)

    by JaJ_D ( 652372 ) on Tuesday June 08, 2004 @09:17AM (#9364929)
    You can now make friends and be aware of people on the web!

    So I now can order food, beer, Geek toys, clothes, make friends, work and interact - all without leaving my home.

    Now if I could just be able to order sex, I can brickup my front door....

    ....checks google....

    Just found out that all my needs are now catered for.....

    Bricks are being delivered monday!

    :^]

    Jaj
  • I don't really think that this is something that most people want. It seems like it might be slightly interesting, for about two minutes, and then you'd turn it off permanently.

    But, while we are mentioning Jabber, I have to say that I am a bit disappointed with Jabber. Overall development of the Jabber messaging platform has been slow since the ratification of the protocol and it seems like this is the type of open source project that should really be making advancements. Messaging in the open source comm

  • After the experience... (Score:4, Funny)

    by GypC ( 7592 ) on Tuesday June 08, 2004 @09:18AM (#9364937) Homepage Journal

    ... of reading Slashdot for the last 6 years, I would have to say, "Absolutely not."

  • In Real Life (Score:4, Insightful)

    by DrugCheese ( 266151 ) on Tuesday June 08, 2004 @09:19AM (#9364954)
    IRL I'm sitting here at my keyboard typing this. The internet is no magical Alter Ego machine. I've met people from the internet, it's no different from meeting people in 'real life'. Sometimes it's good, sometimes it's bad.

    Why not ask the question: Do you want to see anyone in REAL LIFE at all?

  • Um...huh? (Score:4, Informative)

    by superdan2k ( 135614 ) on Tuesday June 08, 2004 @09:25AM (#9364988) Homepage Journal
    "But: do you want to meet people on the Web at all?"

    Well, given that I met someone on match.com [match.com] more than two years ago and that we're getting married in August [dan-carolyn.us], I'd say there's nothing wrong with meeting people on the web.

    If it weren't for the web, I wouldn't have met my font-design mentor, Chank [chank.com], despite the fact that we live in the same city. Some of my best friends on the planet, I've met through IRC and Livejournal [livejournal.com]

    That said, I still don't want to have a sitatuation as describe in the article of being aware of people that are surfing the same sites I am. Especially when I'm surfing the pr0n. I mean, yeesh...talk about TMI.

  • I've met lots of great people on the Internet.. (Score:3, Interesting)

    by the_rajah ( 749499 ) * on Tuesday June 08, 2004 @09:25AM (#9364994) Homepage
    but not through some random chat-roomish sort of way. I operate some discussion boards and have met some really nice people with whom I have something in common.

    I was introduced to my wife through an e-mail from a mutual friend who I would not have know without the Internet. The Internet is a perfectly valid way to meet people, but not in a singles bar sort of way.

    "Do the Right Thing. It will gratify some people and astound the rest." - Mark Twain

  • I like to help others on a development community I haunt, but I really hate it when they request to add me to their lists / see my online presence. I use IM mostly for business, and I actively participate in the development forum because I like to help - not carry on dialog. Besides, in such a situation people stop thinking for themselves when it comes to development problems (typically simple things they can't figure out because they didn't read the API documentation).

    I like not carrying on dialog with p

  • This can't turn out well. (Score:4, Funny)

    by Flyskippy1 ( 625890 ) on Tuesday June 08, 2004 @09:26AM (#9364999) Homepage
    I can see how this will work: Jabber: You are visiting goatse.cx, there are 1 other visitors. Visitor: Don't you just love looking at this guy. You: Wait... is that you, Mom?

  • Horrible (Score:2, Funny)

    by Bromrrrrr ( 166605 )
    So I went to this site and was greeted by a hundred thousand avatars who had just come from Slashdot.

    It was horrible
  • I have always found that it is much more enjoyable to use IM for talking with people I already know.

    Some are nerds, some are normal people, and some have their own CD, but it always gives me a chance to talk, and lets me let out what i want to say because I am a fairly quiet person. And there isn't anything I hate more than being dragged into a coversation with ten complete strangers, which ends up as a flame war within seconds.

    And it beats screaming at the monitor when I get shot down in UT2K4.

  • ICQ had made it (Score:5, Informative)

    by Madarco ( 771834 ) on Tuesday June 08, 2004 @09:34AM (#9365073) Homepage
    Some years ago ICQ (mirabilis) tried to launch something similar: a chat integrated with browser where you meet the people on the same page, but without the avatars. I don't know where it has gone.
  • Already I have those women with their webcams going after me in email, IM, etc. I do not need another way to get spammed. I do not want to meet those kind of people. Not to mention another method for viruses to use to try and infect my machine.

  • The Dynamics of Anonymity (Score:5, Insightful)

    by TimTheFoolMan ( 656432 ) on Tuesday June 08, 2004 @09:39AM (#9365135) Homepage Journal
    Having met several people in person that I first met through e-mail or chat (fellow programmers and co-workers from remote locations), I've noticed several interesting dynamics from virtual communications relative to those of "real life." Some of these are obvious, such as judging people by how well they express their ideas and opinions in words (instead of by their appearance or personal hygiene).

    Others are more subtle, and are apparent only over time, such as the speed with which someone responds. Do they think quickly, but type slowly? Do they fly off the handle and just post the first thing that comes to mind, or do they carefully consider every response?

    In most cases, I have found that getting to know someone online, over time, gives you a better perspective on how that person sees themselves. If they have low self-esteem, that will come across (eventually). If they're confident and authoritative, that will show (again, over time). If they're egotistical and full of themselves, they'll have microsoft.com in their e-mail address.

    However, you *can* get to know someone really well on one level (or in a given context), and completely miss another. For instance, I used to manage several mailing lists about Borland Delphi. One of the moderators for the list, named Jo, was moving from one part of South Africa to another, and was offline for a couple of weeks. I had known Jo for years as a serious gearhead when it came to Delphi Database programming. After I asked one of the other moderators about Jo by saying, "Where is he moving?", I discovered that Jo was, in fact, a woman.

    At that point, Jo's signature line took on new meaning (and I got a much-needed lesson in gender stereotyping): "I am a programmer - I don't do relationships."

    Tim

  • Like "The Palace" (Score:2, Insightful)

    by tritone ( 189506 )
    How is this any better than The Palace [thepalace.com]? The Palace is chat software with avatars, sound, interactive environments, and its own nifty RPN scripting language, ipscrae. It was so sucessful that it even made it to the cover of Time, but it faded after it was bought by a company that tried to push its use in the corporate work space.

  • Uber-geeks! (Score:3, Funny)

    by scottennis ( 225462 ) on Tuesday June 08, 2004 @09:43AM (#9365177) Homepage
    This would fall into the "News for Nerds" as opposed to the "Stuff that matters" category.
  • ...there were Bulletin Boards which people had to dial up (at 1200 BAUD!) to log in and enter (no "surfing" in those days). Eventually, after much chatter and posting, people arrange to meet for lunch/dinner at a public gathering.

    Oh, what fun to put a face to the name (this was before you could see what the person looked like, due to dial-up speed and technology)! Sometimes, you met a certain someone and you continued a relationship "offline" using a phone (there were no "cell phones" back then), since the
  • unless there is some more definite shared interest than visiting a particular web site.
    I think finding common interests and discovering like-minded individuals is what forums and web logs are better at doing.

    I recently installed Yahoo Messenger, because my daughter wanted to chat online. I looked at a couple of the chat rooms, even the purportedly technical ones were total cesspools. Slashdot would be a cesspool if not for the meta-moderation system, I always browse at level 4 or 5, and even then the discu

  • Do you want to meet people on the Web? (Score:4, Interesting)

    by mwood ( 25379 ) on Tuesday June 08, 2004 @10:07AM (#9365419)
    Despite my rants elsewhere about the unreality of the "real world" concept, I'd have to say no. I do not have any unfulfilled desire to meet people on the 'net (or anywhere else). I meet people all the time, netwise and otherwise, and I find this sufficient.
  • This project is a brilliant example of what jabber needs. Instead of just being able to mimick everybody else, Jabber needs to have a few features that the competitors do not have. Otherwise they will never be main stream. (Here I may falsely assume that their goal is to be main stream).

    Personally I have been trying to convince my friends to use Jabber for a long time. But I am using gaim, and they all know that I have accounts on icq, msn and yahoo. Therefore I haven't been able to convince anyone :(

  • Urgent message

    Slashdot just put up the news. People are downloading and starting LLuna. Our operational server is hoplessly overloaded, because most users use our internal backup server as their primary jabber server.

    If you try out LLuna then please do NOT use the quick start wizard. Please use other jabber servers to log in to LLuna to distribute the load.

  • I always see the jokes about the futility of meeting girls online. Maybe this misperception that girls are not online is part of the problem! I know quite a few "hot" girls and they all use IM, email, and mobile phone text messaging EXTENSIVELY. Like way more than any geek I know.
  • But: do you want to meet people on the Web at all?

    I didn't think I would, but yes. When I moved to London, I didn't know anyone in the city and had to bootstrap myself a new social network. Graduate school helped, but after a while I wanted more than one group of friends so I turned to Orkut. I've been to a bunch of meetings and generally my experiences have been positive.

    For those interested, I wrote about my first orkut meetup on my blog here [colingregorypalmer.net].

  • Meeting local friends on the net? (Score:3, Interesting)

    by sacrilicious ( 316896 ) <qbgfynfu.opt@recursor.net> on Tuesday June 08, 2004 @10:43AM (#9365909) Homepage
    Anyone have success using the net to meet people who are geographically local? I moved recently to the remote outskirts of a metro area, and have been trying to use the net as one of the ways to meet people who might have friendship potential. I've looked at IRC, but had no luck finding channels that aggregate people by locale. I don't want to post on a match-making service, as I'm not after a relationship. Any stories of success out there?
  • Too bad Odigo [odigo.org] has had this feature for a few years now. They call it "radar" or something like that, and it actually got annoying when people messaged you that were on the same website.

  • Yes... (Score:3, Insightful)

    by antdude ( 79039 ) on Tuesday June 08, 2004 @11:02AM (#9366160) Homepage Journal
    Because I have speech and hearing impediments so it is hard for me to socialize in person. I used to socialize on chat BBS' before Internet was hot. Now, I use IMs, e-mails, etc. to socialize. Also, it keeps my physical appearance invisible to new people that don't know me.

  • Like asking a fellow shopper for their advice? (Score:3, Insightful)

    by amichalo ( 132545 ) on Tuesday June 08, 2004 @11:04AM (#9366192)
    As I understand it, this is like being able to turn to a shopper on the same isle as you in a retail store and ask what they think of product XYZ, or turning to the person behind you at a rock concert and saying "Man can Neal Peart play those drums!"

    I can see this being helpful, but at the same time, I would think the desired web default would be to ignore the person who doesn't know what it is they are looking for (isn't Google for that?) or wants to talk about the video stream I am trying to enjoy (isn't IRC for that?).

    Basically I think it is a cool application of technology, but if people want to talkabout a website, they already can (isn't /. for that?).

  • I met my wife online. (Score:4, Funny)

    by Beardo the Bearded ( 321478 ) on Tuesday June 08, 2004 @12:26PM (#9367234)
    We've been together for just over eight years, married for almost 6, and we have a 4-month-old daughter.

    So, can you and should you meet people online? Hell yes!

    Um, if they want your credit card right away, they're not just being inquisitive. ;)
  • The Metaverse will not happen due to people creating monolithic apps or projects, but will happen by the integration of small protocols such as this... from VPP its easy to add a "model" of the presence, and thus create space.
  • When I was in high school, used IRC. A lot.
    The people I met were great. we formed close friendships, and met occasionally in real life. Also, it was fun being able to tell people that of my friends, more than half of them were a complete mystery to me in all of the normal ways that people identify with others. I didn't know their names, their gender, their skin colour, where they lived, what they did for a living, how old they were, what they looked like, etc. I just knew what we talked about. And it was go
  • For people like me who are socially retarded, the internet is a wonderful place to meet people. I've been meeting people from the net for the past 5 or 6 years, and I haven't had a single bad experience. It was exciting to finally meet and hang out with people who shared the same interests as me. Face it, when you're a total computer nerd with elitest tastes in music, people who share those interests are pretty few and far between. What better way to meet people with those interests than, say, a forum for [frankblack.net]
  • Actually this could be a very usefull tool when trying to find information and meeting people. Most of my favorite websites I found through others, not a search enginee.

    At the same time I'd see a need to have the "not connected" option, for when you want a little alone time while perusing your favorite beastial midget porn site.

Slashdot Top Deals

BLISS is ignorance.

Close