jr conlin's ink stained banana

Google is doing it, Amazon is doing it, as are thousands upon thousands of other smaller companies. What are they doing? They're launching social networks.

Yes, now via the wonders of technomancy, you have the ability to sell off your friends on ebay or have friends wonder about your taste in movies.

But what fun is that? i mean, how cool is something if everyone else is doing it? i know who my friends and associates are, they're very nice people who share my opinions about telemarketers. Their contact information lives in my PDA, bookmark list, messenger buddy lists, and address books. i don't really get any good value out of creating yet another list of them for apparently no really compelling reason.

That's why i propose starting an Anti-Social network.

Why bother the people you like when you can bother people you have no idea exist like Jeff Carano. He's not a friend and i have no idea who he is, but i now have a link to him. (i was actually looking for the made up name "Michael Delvecchio" when i found him, so there's an illusionary network already started.) Likewise, if you like, you have my permission to sell PHP books to Regina Humphrey (in fact, i'll even give you her work number). She'll probably know me as "that nasty feller on that TV show? The one what got shot and all?" but she's a good complete stranger which i've never met.

Here are some other semi-randomly generated names of people i've never met:
Mario Lapucci
Igor Strombold
Yen Fe Xao
Sarah McFoogle
Renee Sanderpot
Jonathan P. Bowser III
Kochiko Mitsubishi
Fernando S. O'Connor

You have my permission to bug any and all of them, regardless of whether or not they actually exist.

So go ahead and start up your own antisocial network before all the other cool kids do.