'Bah Humbug' Social Networking

Are you a real friend or just a Facebook friend? Social networkers fed up with superficial online relationships are increasingly gathering at spinoff sites that poke fun at, and rant about, things they dislike about the social networking phenomenon, according to a published report.

Snubster, Enemybook, and Hatebook are such anti-social networking sites that are catching on among college students and others. Enemybook for instance, was created by a Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) student at first as a joke. "It started basically as a satire, sort of a parody of some of the superficial aspects of Facebook and the connections that you have, but now it's kind of evolved and it allows people to express themselves via their dislikes," said Kevin Matulef, the creator of Enemybook. Enemybook has around 9,000 members and is a Facebook application.

"A lot of people like myself use it just to joke around with our good friends," he said.

Where do you draw the line on who's your buddy and gets access to all of your contacts, photos, and other information, and who's not? "I would get Facebook requests from people I talked to for three minutes at a bar or party, and now this person wants to go online to peruse all of my photos and contacts. I just didn't get it," said Snubster's founder and technology consultant, Bryant Choung. Snubster, which also runs on Facebook, currently has 16,000 users, compared with Facebook's around 59 million active users.

— Kelly Jackson Higgins, Senior Editor, Dark Reading