I was poking around on eVite to try to figure out how to invite a bunch of friends to Sarah's birthday party this weekend and to figure out if VMS would be better off using it than having to go through the constant back and forth that we normally do to co-ordinate mentor meetings and deal with RSVPs. It seems like something that should have been automated and free by now to have a co-ordinator bot deal with all people's idiosyncrasies until a meeting time has been established. But anyways...

We are planning on going out to the North End for dinner, then an improv show, then go out dancing. While I was on the site I noticed that eVite has added a bunch of new social networking features that surprised me but I think they are pretty cool. The first thing I noticed was that there were a bunch of people's pictures under the heading "People to See". I didn't know who they were but after taking a closer look and updating my information quickly I found that it shows me all the people who were on guest lists for events that I was invited to.

I found old high school friends through a superbowl party in San Francisco that I never went to, improv people from a get together at Sally's house, old frat brothers who I used to wrestle with that were on bachelor party and wedding invitations, and people I met once at a friend's going away party. I am not really that often invited to these sorts of events so I only have about 358 people on my list but I could imagine someone who was a little more active would have thousands of people that they could dig-up through this thing.

It has a big wow factor to see all these people suddenly in front of me given that I hadn't thought that they had been left behind or the data had been trash compacted a long time ago. But I can go and find a woman I met at a party that I had a great time with three years ago that I wanted to know. It is a little scary but also represents continued evolution of how we will use and continue to use technology to network and build communities.

I had been thinking a lot about communities because Ami came over last night. He was talking about how the Russian community in San Francisco is very active with great events being held almost every night that they can't help but go to. Ami and Ilana are busy as bees humming around from one party, rave, burning man, or parade to the next. He went to some web sites of friends in the community who had posted their pictures for months with Ami and Ilana appearing in and out of pictures. Their pictures of Burning Man from last year and this year were especially interesting. It looks like a really amazing event and is an experiment in temporary community. Sasha Vladimirov this year created a new god and mantra with giant ears that was finally a god that listens rather than talks to you and I could see him at Burning Man with his big brown furry ears on. I also realized how much preparation work people put into Burning Man and how tricky it will be for Robert and I to pull off even a mild pilot of an East Coast Burning Man through Frozen Man 2005. But we will try anyways because that is what we do.

So I realized while I was talking to Ami how anti-social I really am and how I have chosen to live excludes communities. I think my general phobias and neuroses about being in crowded rooms with strangers keeps me from being in a community. I am a bit of a loner who doesn't even feel really comfortable using IM or the telephone. It may also be that I prefer to be alone and to have peace from being alone with a small number of people who are the same every day. I am not sure what it is but I don't plan much on this front. I surf my way into my social relationships and when I go to invite "all my friends in Boston" to something the list can be counted on one hand. There are 235 people on that evite list? Maybe I do know more people?

Jorey and I had been talking about social networking while we were going over entrepreneurial ideas. He is now an unemployed entrepreneur and is doing some work for a friend of his who created a social networking product that goes on top of a content management system that allows people to find experts in the system. He sold a copy to Cisco. It could be promising.

I posted a link on halfbakery about antisocial networking. Someone who viewed it found a link to someone who has done an incredible job making a funny spoof site of friendster called nemister. I can't recommend it or the overall world of the author enough. It is simply hilarious. He has also created his own fake country and a number of other things.

On Sunday I got another invitation through the social networking ether. An entrepreneur who knew Ron Schmelzer with the following message...

"I believe we may have spoken somewhere along the way. I met Ron Schmelzer when he was starting Channelwave. In any case, I have started a new company and we just launched our first product. I may be looking for a marketing person to join our team and I saw you on linked in. We are linked through Lee Leavitt but noticed you were open to direct contact. If you are interested in exploring let me know."

If it proves to be something of real value to both me and him it will be the first time that I have found real value from Linked-in to find a connection that matters to me in business. I have followed-up. More to come.

I also found this amusing at the bottom of the evite site: "Users of alcohol-endorsed Evite designs must be of legal drinking age." Apparently using acohol-endorsed designs by minors is illegal. It makes sense but it looks funny when you really see it.