Friendster has gone the way of the buffalo.

It has died a pitiful death. It's irrelevance has been solidified. In other words, it has "jumped the shark" - a term that in and of itself has "jumped the shark".

Friendster has "partnered" with hollywood to give us the most blatant and obvious attempt at selling a show I have ever seen. Who could see this as anything but the most spectacular example of pandering to an audience ever? Trying to market a show - Stacked - by selling it within two of the "hot" (read "not") communities on the internet - Friendster and the Weblog ring.

This is not a new idea. Using the internet to build the buzz around something leading up to the day it's released to the world has been done a few times already. Movies like Artificial Intelligence and Alternate Reality Games like I Love Bees have generated considerable attention on the world wide web. All the resources at Fox's disposal and the best they can come up with is this??

I'm not surprised really. Leave it to the "creative" minds in charge to be completely behind the curve on this one. You would think they would at least put some time into conceptualizing and fine-tuning the idea before they put it out there for the world to see.

Nobody involved seems even remotely interested in maintaining a weblog presence. I give credit to some of them for not being complete hacks in their postings. The woman named Paget seems mildly interested in posting more than just pics from the studio. And I find it hilarious that in their profiles they all want to meet "fans of Stacked." Oh, I'm sure they will get to meet (read: be stalked by) many of the "fans of Stacked." Great idea, Hollywood. Generate the kind of buzz that requires a court order to put down.

This idea may have been much more interesting if they had built the blogs around the daily lives of the "characters" in the show instead of the actors themselves. Imagine the buzz a show could generate with real interaction between the characters on the show and the people who browse and comment on the "blogs" of said characters. Commenters to the blogs could actually become part of the storyline. Hmm, I may have to put some thought into that idea. Remember folks, the idea was published here. That means it's mine. :)