Introduction and Mission

What? This blog is an experiment in using "web2.0" to convene virtual focus groups for informal sociological "research." Briefly, the idea is to pose a question and then invite folks to comment on it and then I'll attempt to synthesize the results.

Why? In many discussions of web2.0 its unregulated, "anyone can be an author" (and, hence, anyone can be an authority) and every reader can (or has to) be her own editor aspects are championed. This raises the question of whether we really want to live in an "unedited" world, a feast of all raw information all the time.

How? In this project I'm exploring a middle ground. I want to use the web to invite input and conversation and debate among "informants," but also to promise some value added, namely, some tabulating, correlating, interpretation, abstraction, sense-making, evidence seeking, comparison, visualization, and all the other things a trained social scientist is supposedly able to add to public discourse.

It's an experiment. Let's see what happens.

My Friends' Friends Are My Friends?

Do young people have a word for "stealing" their friends' friends?

What do you call it when person A introduces person B to her friends C and D and then person B starts up a friendship with C and sort of leaves A out of the loop?

I don't just mean starts a romantic relationship with (though I'm interested in any words or phrases for that too), but just in general, any sense of how people would talk about leveraging your friends to make new friends?

The specific manifestation of this that I'm interested in is combing your Facebook friends' friend lists and requesting folks you find there to be your friends. Ever heard anyone talk about this phenomenon? Any name for it? Is it OK to do or does it suggest that one "can't make one's own friends"?