Fo.rtuito.us is a brand new site, complete with last minute bugs, that is soft launching this week.
When you register at Fo.rtuito.us it randomly introduces you to another member. You have four days to interact with that member via anonymous email to see if you can become friends. If after those four days both people decide they would like to stay friends, they are added to your permanent friends list. You are then introduced to another person.
I like the innocent simplicity of the site and its goals (“We want…to open their eyes to the world they’re missing by not learning about others”), and hey, it may help a lonely person with some time on his or her hands to find a friend or two. I also wonder about the usefulness of this model to established social networks like Myspace. At the very least, adding a feature like this would add some page views from those users who don’t have a full list of friends on the site already.
Fo.rtuito.us is completely open for new users, so give it a try if you are interested.
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This is certainly an innovative approach to friends net works. It certainly encourages more in depth realtion building than most other similar networks. However the whole anonymous email thing might put off those used to other ways of making friends. And what happens if one person decides to add and the other doesnt?
Very clever concept. Imagine if Myspace introduced users by common keywords in each user’s profile. Wouldn’t that be interesting?
OK, the questions are: what does this site add to what blogs, Myspace, and forums already give us?
You generally want to hang out with someone who is at least talking about something that you are interested in. That would seem to me that you should be able to tag yourself with interests. But that’s what forums and myspace already do. And this site purposely doesn’t.
The site “forces” interaction on you, I suppose. And from people who are most likely less like the ones you would normally seek out. Why is that good?
Negatives:
- No Outbox. Crike. No Inbox sorting or tagging.
- I give it twenty minutes until a “harrassment” button is needed.
Frankly, it’s an awesome idea, but beyond the five seconds of interest, what is it really good for?
Yehuda
That’s probably the worst name of a site I’ve ever seen.
No one will ever be able to remember it in the first place.
Well - I have to admit I’m a bit intrigued by this concept. I seriously hope they’re able to attract someone else but TechCrunch geeks (if you excuse me - I have enough technical ppl in my life already). No foul/harm intended here - but generally these things fall or succeed purely on marketing. Hope they have someone good on board.
I’m trying this out right now, but it seems quite featureless, even if it’s beta. Lack of outbox is really annoing and there should be spell check option too (I’m glad this is included in FF by default).
And that’s how my spell-checker failed to correct ‘annoing’ to ‘annoying’
Thanks Mike for the link. I think it’s a fa.bulo.us idea.
With children getting fatter all the time, perhaps this service could also send an email to all your “new friends” suggesting you meet at a park and play
Now I can have friends!
Maybe there could be serendipitous meetups of sadistic types on to.rturo.us, and of of lowlifes on sc.um.my, and of of bigger folks on vo.luptuo.us… I really don’t think this has run its course yet.
And if you want to fight with someone at random, head on over to pu.gnacio.us!
p.s. jetlag disclosure; I usually don’t make blog comments at 4 am
This is ridiculous. I’ve had enough of the .us and lickr type domains. One more and I should really start slamming them.
Now, I find sense in introducing to a member with similar interests than just a random member.
It took me a long time to get the del.icio.us domain right… Now this?!
I heard that Marc Andreessen of Netscape fame who started “LoudCloud” a few years back is now starting cumulo.nimb.us. …
I prefer geente.com
No need to register, and it’s faster
Seems interesting. But what the hell is up with the default font handling in the login form? It’s awful…Times? Ew.
This could be a poster child for everything that’s irrational about the “Web 2.0″ hype. Building a business around a very weak one-note function? This is the kind of thing that should be a “feature” on other sites, not a site unto itself.
Even if they offered their service via an API to other social networks, it would be a loser idea. There’s nothing in here that any other site couldn’t develop in a few days’ time, max. It’s a random number generator hooked up to a user database. Not exactly rocket science.
What is the problem that this solves? Meeting random strangers? The whole point of “social software” is to bring people together under the auspices of some kind of context — interest community, friend-of-a-friend — so that the noisy randomness of the population at large is mitigated. This site is just a toy. Serendipity on steroids? More like on crack. Or maybe it is just a big database of contact info just waiting to be stolen by spammers and scammers.
When are we going to start seeing “Web 2.0″ applications that actually fill a real human need that isn’t manufactured by a bored web designer or marketer or engineer with nothing better to do? Adam Bosworth gave a keynote at last October’s Zend conference where he challenged the audience to start looking at the applications that people actually need (he was focusing on healthcare, but there are other arenas). When are we going to see something with more substance than another bookmarking site or another way to talk about shopping or another stupid random hook-up toy?
Maybe that’s asking too much, since the web is still largely the baliwick of the bored and privileged. Maybe solving real human problems just isn’t sexy enough or obscenely lucrative enough for Silicon Valley yuppies or hipster graphic artists. This all stinks of another bubble.
At least f.o.r.tu.ito.us doesn’t have rounded corners.
What happens when all 53651 subscribe? Eventually we will all be formally introduced to each other.
I like the idea, but I dont think that it will catch on, too much work for the user to do imo
These names are getting ri.diculo.us
playpacman , http://www.geente.com is the same but just submitting picture+text (mail, website)
That’s what i said. Web 2.0 service must be fast and with no subscriptions
re.tard.ed
The concept is so simple, and as we have seen simple=addicting. I think it would be enhanced by making it location based as well so that if two people actually do become friends they have a chance of meeting.
-Brian
http://www.socialdegree.com
That URL might be cute to us, but the rest of the world will forget how to spell it. I still can’t remember how to type in de.licio.us (was that right?)…
It’s a novel idea, I think it will have some decent traffic, but I can’t see it becoming massive. Then again, it’s a good way to waste time when one has time to waste, which is really the reason for success behind most social networks.
I signed up for it, it’s different thats for sure!
Yup I just signed up, I liked the concept.
Its sort of having a blind date, with a difference. 4 days of getting to know the other person is definitely the way to go.
Its much better than the other socialilizing sites where people just randomly keep on adding people looking at their pictures without even knowing anything about the person.
I think this is a pretty interesting concept, but the first person I got paired up with doesn’t even speak english. I think they speak german but I can’t tell. I think you should have the option to move on, oh and not having an outbox is annoying also.
This comment had me rolling.
“What happens when all 53651 subscribe? Eventually we will all be formally introduced to each other.
hahahahhaha….. this was great….I needed that laugh.
I think if they partner their system with an established place like myspace or AIM or any of the other social networks and have it as a plugin, I think you can patch into an existing userbase. Instead of having it as a separate network you allow someone into an existing network.
This would be something I would do if it was part of another site I already belonged to. We only have so much time to integrate these things into our lives. Where these ideas are new and good, the problem is that they are late to the game. It’s not that I don’t WANT to try it, I just don’t have the time.
The front page says, “What would happen if we no longer used things like looks, age, sex and nationality to decide if we would try and become friends with a person?”
Sign-up page asks for a picture. Why would I upload my picture, if I really wanted to meet people regardless of looks, age, sex, and nationality?
This is not Beta… more like Alpha. This could not have taken more than a couple of days to put together. The matching is completely randon, not based on any user data what so ever… Very innovative, not!
The idea to acually introduce something like this on a larger scale website like MySpace and bas the matchup on user data seems like a good idea though.
This is the ultimate example of Social Networking - but there is one irony….
READ THIS IS THEIR HOMEPAGE….
What would happen if we no longer used things like looks, age, sex and nationality to decide if we would try and become friends with a person?
Yet they ask members to upload a picture. :LOL
Guess “LOOKS” are so ingrained in society that there is just NO way around it …..except “CHAT”
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I agree. That domain name is just dumb.
It works for delicious because they were first (plus they now own delicious.com so it’s not a problem now anyway). But people seriously need to stop registering these. st.up.id domain names.
I thought every comment I wanted to make was done earlier. But by the time I finished reading all the comments, curiosity got over me and I decided to signup and give it a try.
They say on the home page “What if we don’t use things like looks, sex and nationality to decide if we would try and become friends with a person”.
Nobody told me you cannot complete your registration without uploading your picture! Truly anonymous indeed!
So it’s like speed dating but applied to trying to make friends?
Can you focus it locally? At http://www.idahofallz.com we’re totally focused on a small town, and it would be neat to focus it locally and meet new people in your zip code or town.
Nice concept, very web2.0 kind of social interaction.
I like the equation with online speed dating.
This site really whips the llamas ass!
Once all the 5250 people sign-up, all your readers will know eachother.
Have you tried The Email Roulette ? Sign up and you can send an email randomly to everybody that’s already signed up and you’ll occasionally receive some cranky emails too.
There is much more creativity (”hmm what kind of funny thing can I send out ?”) and there is no need for a fancy interface, just use your email program.
I’ve started conversations with a few foreigners this way, it all has been a lot of fun since I signed up
Probably this is another make of Friendster or something like that….
An update: We have added an Outbox to fo.rtuito.us
Other updates per request are coming.
Thank you for creating this business! We’re always looking for new ways to scam, spam, corrupt, steal, defraud, swindle and cheat the general public. More free anonymous social engineering - it’s a dream come true. Thanks man! We look forward to making new victims, er, friends.
Yeah. nice concept…… but the guys gotta maintain the flow …
you will get a lot of new guys that’s for sure….
good for networking
hi
want friends around the world
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