Hey, would you like to be my enemy?

MUMBAI, INDIA: Even as Orkuts and the Facebooks help you to get in touch with long lost friends and make new ones, a different set of sites have mushroomed that poke fun at the prevalent online camaraderie and provides an avenue for those who believe in passing cynical comments and at tongue-in-cheek humor.

For the uninitiated, we are talking about sites that promote enmity on a networking platform. Puzzled! Read on…

Ajit Balakrishnan, chairman and CEO, Rediff.com, recently told CyberMedia News, “I think what has taken off is ‘Boy meets Girl’ social networking and there is no other purpose but try to get a connection and this a major trend that we are witnessing at this point of time.”

But social networking for sure has graduated from boy-meets-girl to ‘friend-meets-foe’ and has just got a contemptuous cousin to counter now.

While sites such as Facebook and Orkut encourage you to manage your friends, burlesque sites such as Snubster, Hatebook and Enemybook help you to manage your foes and push you to find enemies who might love to hate you and vent your anger on one another.

When the latest sensation in the social networking circles — Facebook opened its application Snubster — it helped users across the orb to gather things and people they loathe. And within 18 months, a host of sites are there that make you busy making enemies.

Vijay Gupta, an advertising agency executive is of the opinion that such satire sites if used in the right direction could be fun but hopes that these web spaces don’t end up as a breeding ground for anti-social activities. Many of the users are of the opinion that this new variety of sites would allow its user to articulate themselves through their aversions.

On the flip side, there are users of social networking sites, such as Karan, who voice their concern. “No matter how funny these sites appear, these could lead people to actually promote anger amongst each other which is not actually good.”

So, how does the future look? Kunal Pandya, CEO and founder, Metrojoint.com offers an explanation. “I hope you've heard of mydeathspace.com, which is the archival site of obituaries of MySpace members, linking to their MySpace pages. However, these anti-social sites such as Hatebook and all do not seem to have a bright future.”

He brings forth a simple logic that despite these web spaces receiving undue attention at this point of time mainly due to their notorious nature, the light would fade out and users would come back to the tried and tested sites.

Analysts opine that such sites are bad mirrors, which many wouldn’t want to have a second look.

“Even technically, hatebook.com looks more of a blog and not a social network. I couldn't quite open Enemybook though I think this site does not exist. You can write about the subject you hate or you envy. If others also hate it, they will vote for it - this feature is called as ‘me too’,” states Pandya.

Hence, the social networking sojourn would continue as per the pundits and ‘friend meets foe’ sites according to them are not more than any aberration in an ocean.

© CyberMedia News