AOL's ICQ division is launching ICQ Universe, a social networking service built on top of a buddy list. The FAQ is filled with all sorts of interesting notes, including: This takes the AOL Lobby/LambdaMOO closet pattern and adds it to the YASNS world -- an entry space where you're in the system, but not yet part of the social world. The dynamics of the "Why I Should Be Invited" box could be amazing, since it will be people lobbying for inclusion by people who aren't, by definition, their friends. It preserves the "Friend me so I can get onto Orkut/Friendster" pattern, but raises the bar for inclusion in possibly competitive ways. This _seems_ to mean that once a connection is made, it can never be broken, only re-characterized. I can't imagine why they would do this, unless they think it's necessary for social density, or they want to make calculating friend-of-a-friend networks easier by making connections permanent. The reference to you not being able to change the "chain of connections" suggests that ICQ regards your social connections as being owned by people connecting through you (and owned by ICQ as well), something almost unimaginable in the real world. "Can you introduce me to your ex-girlfriend's new boyfriend?" "Uh, no." I predict disaster here, but interesting disaster. Somebody _finally_ copies the LiveJournal pattern, instead of the stupid Friendster pattern, where a relationship is a set of mutual pointers, instead of a single transaction. Loveliest of all, though (paging dr. boyd to ER), is this little goodie at the end: It's like an e-mail pyramid scheme: Don't break the chain! The mind boggles at an SNS that make registering with the service an irreversible act.