By Dennis D. McDonald

Stage 1 - The Joining

A meatspace friend tells you about a new service that all the cool kids are using. You join.

Stage 2 - The Expansion

You start playing around with the tool and decide you need to add more “friends” so you import your email list and send out invitations.

Stage 3 - The Reality

Your initial broadcast of invitation requests generated a few really nasty responses, but they weren’t your friends, actually. Anyway, you are starting to follow some cool people and exchange messages. You meet some people face to face at a local Starbucks. Life is good - you’re getting to know some new people!

Stage 4 - The ROI Debate

You start getting a ton of invitations to connect from people you don’t know, along with a slew of penis enlargement ads and get-rich-quick schemes. Messages start going around about how “It’s not like the old days when everyone knew each other,” and, “The A-listers are just using the group for spamming.” You begin questioning time online and start pruning your list.

Stage 5 - The Migration

A virtual friend tells you about a new service that all the cool kids are using. You join.

Copyright (c) 2008 by Dennis D. McDonald