Wednesday, May 26, 2010

Helping Frenimies Connect

At the core of social media, the goal has always been to connect. MySpace began as a way for emerging bands to connect with fans, Facebook connected college classmates and Twitter connects, well, everyone.

It was only a matter of time before someone realized that all this connecting might have us too close to those we’d rather not be so close with. Meet the anti-social media platform Avoidr.

It’s exactly what you think it is. According to the site, it utilizes Foursquare to “keep your friends close and your enemies at that bar down the street.” Which raises the question as to why your enemies would be connected with you on Foursquare in the first place, but for those who friend anyone and everyone—you know who you are—this might actually be a useful tool.

So how does it work? Link it up with your Foursquare account and decide exactly who you don’t want to run into. For this test I singled out my coworker, @slopato. Specifically, I called her a phony.


The site should let me know where she checked in so I know to avoid it, but so far the only message I’ve seen is something along the lines of, “All clear! You've got the run of the town.”

Has the site been working for you or is giving you a false sense of security like I’m getting? Or if you haven’t tried it yet, do you think there’s a need for this type of platform? Do you feel the need to connect with your frenimies?