by Andy DeSoto on July 25, 2008
I think 
I’ve figured out what helps make social network Plurk so sticky, why it continues to draw users back increasingly more often for longer periods of time: the Plurk timeline not only shows the conversations that you’re engaged in, but those that your friends and followers are keeping up with, too.
Let me be a bit more precise. You can pretty much categorize any update on Plurk into one of three groups:
- Your Plurk.
- A friend’s Plurk to which you’ve replied.
- A friend’s Plurk to which you haven’t replied.
It’s the way Plurk handles this third category that makes the service so unique.
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by Andy DeSoto on June 4, 2008
Every once in a while, I feel a bit aimless, and as we transition into June, I’m beginning to think this is one of these times. Without the structure of daily classes, things start slowing down a little bit and what I’d call ‘productive’ right now is hardly what I would have called productive in the middle of November.
So, in order to get back on track, I’ve tried to figure out what I can accomplish to make things a bit more worthwhile while I’m on break. At first, the question I asked myself was, “What should I be doing right now? What do I need to get done?” The resulting to-do list was embarassingly sparse, full of useless action items such as “reply to e-mails.” It didn’t take me too long to realize I was asking myself the wrong question.
What I decided to ask myself instead was: What will make me happier? Taking a step back and asking a question with a broader reach has helped me narrow down some goals for myself that are bound to be more rewarding. As I thought about what would improve upon this great month or so I’ve already had here at home, three things immediately jumped to mind.
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by Andy DeSoto on May 18, 2008
While we’re still on yesterday’s topic of friends, it’s worth mentioning a recent short report from Psychological Science entitled “Becoming Friends by Chance” that suggests that, contrary to popular opinion, the foundation of a good friendship isn’t necessarily similarities, shared likes and dislikes, or other commonalities. Rather, this paper, published by researchers at the University of Leipzig, suggests that mere chance alone can be more than enough to establish a solid friendship.
To put it a little more scientifically, the psychologists write in their abstract:
This study examined whether randomly determined physical proximity and group assignment during an initial encounter are each sufficient to influence the likelihood of a friendship developing in a real-life context.
In this study, 54 psychology freshmen were randomly ordered and asked to introduce themselves to the class, one at a time. As each spoke, the other students rated the presenter’s likeability and how much they would like to get to know the presenter in person. Following this, all the participants were assigned permanent seats in the classroom, with each possible pair matching one of three conditions: in neighboring seats, in the same row, or in no relation to one another.
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