Judy: “On-line tools for meeting people are useful when the time comes (and if you know how to block people successfully). But they still have their downsides. At times, I realize that it's probably just a waste of time.”

I'm more optimistic about tools like Meetup and Upcoming which are designed specifically to get people away from their desks and out to events. Meetup is too regularized (i.e. once a month about a specific topic or interest) and Upcoming is too much of a one-off deal to really meet people with similar interests. There needs to be something in the middle which encourages like-minded people to "meet" and talk very briefly, but then, after a set amount of messages, they have to either exchange phone #'s or meet in person. Friendster is supposed to be that, but as Judy mentions, it can get intimidating when others have hundreds of "friends" added to their list, because if you don't, it feels like you're not trying hard enough.

My weblog is my social networking software, and people like Darren are taking it upon themselves to organize ad-hoc gatherings of local bloggers with the idea that non-bloggers can join in the fun as well. This is the second month in a row that Darren has organized a meetup, so it could potentially be regularized, so the pull towards a site like Meetup would be stronger, but I imagine there will be months where everybody will just be too busy to warrant a meetup but where it won't disrupt the ad-hoc, decentralized nature of the organizing. So that said, the promise of social networking software to get us to stop using our computers and get out and do something together has so far failed, but I'm optimistic about using our own sites (and email, which, I just checked, is still incredibly widely used) to meet in the flesh.