Think of them as eBay crossed with Napster, then injected with Friendster DNA. The newest social networking services merge three powerful Web functions - auctioning, file-sharing, and friend-of-a-friend socializing - to build digital barter economies. Unlike first-gen social networks, these communities are about more than getting laid and getting paid. These "social swap nets" help like-minded members pool digital resources - music, movies, games, even hardcover books.
Mediachest and SongBuddy are two early examples. They're still small (and size matters when it comes to a well-stocked "sharing pool"), but their very existence points to a new era in networked transactions, one in which online exchanges become more useful.
Here's how they work: Members browse one another's collections online using filters such as friend groups, geographic location, or other affinities. This isn't file-swapping in the old outlaw Napster sense. They can access one another's stuff, but the original copy literally traded with others, rather than downloaded and duplicated via P2P. Getting hold of the goods is mostly a low tech affair. Members often mail or hand-deliver items.
Social swap nets are growing fast. Since its launch this winter, Mediachest says its listings have topped 170,000 media files. (Buying all that material new would run $3.5 million.) The service is free, and its 3,500 members create personal online catalogs of books, DVDs, CDs, and videogames for lending. It's like a P2P public library.
Meanwhile, SongBuddy (still in beta) helps friends alert members to "free and legal" MP3 downloads. When you add a song to your stash, it appears on your friends' playlists, too.
Then there are the friend-of-a-friend media-sharing services that remain underground, invitation-only co-ops. For instance, there's a network among audio professionals in Hollywood who share sound clips and audio-editing tools.
As the services' popularity grows, expect to see some emerging online social trends. Borrower-lender systems like these will build a sense of accountability into personal digital loans. If you fail to return a CD to a friend, you could be dissed online for your bad digital manners. And when your catalog is online for all your friends (and their friends) to browse, will you hide the unhip stuff? (Um, no, that's not my copy of Wayne Newton's "Danke Schoen.")
The Mediachest homepage displays a handful of sample member profiles, with names, headshots, and mini-bios. "Chris" boasts of saving $50 a month on movie rentals that he can now borrow for free. "Becca" swoons over the abundance of "cute guys who actually shared my interests." So, OK, it's still partly about hooking up. But if social swap nets do nothing more than prompt single guys to spend less on DVD rentals and more on dates with real dames, then social networking may yet make the world a better place.
Xeni Jardin (xeni@xeni.net) is a contributing writer at Wired.
credit: Christopher Sleboda
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