This post originated from an RSS feed registered with .NET Buzz by Randy Holloway. Original Post: Defining Relationships in Orkut Feed Title: Randy Holloway's Weblog Feed URL: /msdnerror.htm?aspxerrorpath=/rholloway/rss.aspx Feed Description: Commentary on Yukon, the CLR, and related technologies interspersed with personal opinion. Latest .NET Buzz Posts Latest .NET Buzz Posts by Randy Holloway Latest Posts From Randy Holloway's Weblog

Don Park and Robert Scoble both had interesting posts on Orkut over the past week.  In Don's post, he describes a "friendship circle" which could serve as a model on which relationships could be defined in social software.  Robert also described how there should be a way to categorize a person as an acquaintance, or a person that you know but may not be a friend (yet).  I think that these comments really sum up my biggest complaint with social software.  The complaint is that you can't effectively differentiate a lifelong friend with a casual professional acquaintance.  I'd like to see someone do a better job of solving that problem before I'd be willing to invest much more time or energy on networking using one of the social software platforms.