faking out friendster

Here's an article (via Salon) on the rapidly expanding web phenomenon that is friendster: Friendster is beginning to crack down on "fakesters", artificial friendster members ranging from deities to comic characters to ancient conquerers to abstract social phenomena. How would you like to have God, Homer Simpson, Beer Goggles, Charlemagne, and Conan O'Brien in your social circle? Well, not for long, according to Friendster CEO Jonathan Abrams. Enjoy the craziness while you can, and, more importantly, enjoy fee-free friend-linking while it lasts.

The article got some of my geekier sensibilities going. I'd love to get a hold of friendster's database... not only for some wonderful visualization opportunities, but also to start doing some analysis and data mining. Just imagine computing a PageRank for people and performing collaborative filtering for friends. Don't be surprised if friendster starts rolling out such advanced features in the future... though, first things first, they really need to get their systems engineering going and speed up their site. It often takes over a minute just to follow a link these days...