A very interesting article in the New York Times (free registration required) highlights the research of sociology PhD candidate Danah Boyd, also known as Zephoria, who is studying the popular social networking web tool Friendster: "Ms. Boyd says that the real world has a set of properties, which she calls architectures. With its deceptively simple set of features, her thinking goes, Friendster bends or replaces all of the real-world architectures."

Sounds like a gameable system to me! Friendster allows the creation of multiple online identities, some of them completely fabricated - "Fakesters". While Friendster administrators, who want the software to function as a dating site, are vigilant in eliminating obviously fake friendsters, nevertheless it is fun to claim to be friends with Lara Croft (I am.) My favorite Fakester is Frodo: under the "about me" section, he wrote, "My uncle left me this ring. It changed my life."

But the gaming aspect of this tool goes beyond made-up identities; Friendster turns friendship and dating into a game. You can browse the galleries, pick people out, and see how you are connected to them - if at all. The idea is that you're more likely to contact someone whom you know is a friend of a friend. There are "testimonials" written by that person's friendsters. Finding that special someone, then, merely requires mining these social networks like a resource in Warcraft. Set your peasants to work!

In any case, the article goes a long way towards explaining the popularity of Friendster over other similar network systems like Ryze or Tribe, both of which are arguably sleeker and faster. Friendster is more fun. It invites people to play.