Orkut for IRC

In between 503 server errors on slashdot I happened to notice an article about the language tempest brewing at Orkut.

For those of you that don’t know, Orkut is one of those community-based networking sites that allows you to connect to other people through a set of trusted friends. The concept is quite interesting to say the least but I have yet to see a reason that it should stand on its own. I think that Orkut itself has grown at the pace that it has mainly because of the Google affiliation and the fact that Miguel de Icaza must have been the first person to receive an invitation.

One place that I think this concept would work quite well in is IRC. I know here at the OSL we have been providing hosting resources for folks such as Gentoo and Freenode and we see the advantage of having many diverse groups working closely together. This cross-polination has yielded some interesting new projects as well as helped others get involved in things they might not have otherwise.

I would love to see the Orkut model applied here. Take for example Freenode. If I could go to a website and login with my IRC credentials and then be able to list “friends” and find folks with similar interests I would drive traffic on the network. Not only that, but you’d see a growth in the cross-project collaboration that tends to happen when you get everybody in one place. I would love it when I get /msg’d to be able to see who the heck somebody is. Not only that; see who they know and are “friends” with. This model of trust would help go a long way (especially considering the difficult nature of communicating via IRC).

I believe that the first network to build into their general services a model such as this would see an explosion of services. I’ll take it one step further; if you run an IRC network and need resources to do such a thing, the OSL will help provide hosting resources (machines and bandwidth) to make it happen.