My Political Space

Essembly/Social Networks/News/Article/Robbie Brown
Found on: msnbc.msn.com

Imagine the Internet as a college campus. Amazon.com is the bookstore. Wikipedia is the library. Facebook is the snazzy new dorm. Friendster is the dreary old one. And the classroom? That just may be a newcomer, Essembly.com.

Essembly, designed last year by Joe Green, 23, a friend and former Harvard classmate of Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg, is the emerging online social network of the serious-minded. Like Facebook and MySpace, the site is free and lets users browse friends' photos and personal information. But unlike more organic networks, it actively promotes intellectual discussion. In the spirit of collegiate debate, Essembly users spar over declarations of opinion called "resolves." They also identify other members as "allies" and "nemeses" based on ideological similarities. "On Facebook, people rack up 'friends' like there's no tomorrow," Green says. "What really is missing is a connection between people based on how they think."