Just about every part of the Web 2.0 evolution that has occurred over the last while has all been based on the success of one thing - the likelihood of people willing to mark some-one that they may or may not know from either mutual reputation or mutual interests as a friend. Correctly, the first to market social networks got people like Robert Scoble, Dave Winer, Jason Calacanis and others like them involved early creating an allure of the chance that the rest of us normal folks would be able to be friends with these luminaries.

I got thinking about this the other day when I wrote I wrote my post called “You know it’s time to say good-bye when….” where I questioned the value of friending some-one who had no intention of doing the same back. Following that post I starting thinking more about the whole idea of what I would call The Economy of Friending with the principal idea being that we offer up our friendship via these various networks in exchange for reciprocal action by those we have friended. The same applies when you get a friend request. Some-one is expecting to gain something from that implied inside track friendship you are both agreeing to.

The problem is that this economy of mutual friending is bound to fail. It is inevitable because not everyone is a Robert Scoble who will friend anyone who comes his way. In fact the majority are more like Dave Winer who is proud of the fact that he has more followers than those he has friended. Many like Dave have created a closed circle and no matter how loud you might like to shout they are never going to hear you; and if by some freak of broken electrons they do see you jumping up and down in the crowd that surrounds them they’ll just ignore you. You aren’t a part of that closed friends circle and unless you are a really good ass kisser the chances are you never will be.

Regardless of whether the network you are taking part in is Facebook, Twitter or even FriendFeed this economy of friending is being built on the inflationary value of the so-called leaders or early adopters who come into any new network with their train of hopeful hanger-on’s. As ever hopeful believers in the equality of the Web 2.0 ethos we stand before the gates of this unattainable friending engine on the off chance we might say something or link to something that will gain us entry into that higher plane of network friending.

The other crack in the economics of friending is the sheer numbers involved that really make the whole idea of friending nothing more than a laughable joke. Through all these social networks and other forms of friend based networks (i.e.: aggregators services) be have been made to believe that the more friends you can connect with - regardless of whether it is one sided or not - the more popular you yourself will appear to be.

The keyword hear is appear because the reality is that half the people that you either have friended or have friended you will forget about you or why they friended you in the first place. As for your own lists when was the last time you went through those hundreds; or in some cases thousands, of supposed friends and even remembered who the hell they are and why you have them in your list to begin with. At some point all those names in those lists mean absolutely nothing. They have no value because chances are you can’t even remember what value friending them was even bringing to the table.

How many people in your lists don’t even speak the same language as you do? How many people in those lists even have similar; or close to similar, interests as you do - or better yet did you even do any background checking of who you were friending.

Friendship; regardless of whether it is real life or this new fangled electronic one, is meant to bring something into your life that adds value. Whether that value is knowledge or the ability to conversations about things you have in common. This new economy of friending that these networks depend on for their survival are not based on any of that. They are totally based on numbers that are beginning to look more like giant pyramid schemes that at some point when friend overload hits us all will implode.

It doesn’t have to be this way though if we remember a very simple thing. Friendship isn’t based on numbers - it’s based on mutual respect and how many people in all your friends list can you say you have mutual respect for. You don’t need to have thousands or even hundreds of friends in order to make these networks work for you.

The true economy of friending is what you get out of these networks - not what they get out of you.

Conversation Tags: social networks, friends, economy of friending