My New Crappy Business Idea 

When I was running the other day, I think I figured out one of those silly business ideas that people come up with and then other people go "that's a really dumb idea ... I bet people will pay for it."

With the prevelence of social networking websites on the web, particularly the big three of MySpace, Friendster, and Orkut (or maybe LinkedIn), it seems like people are always encouraging you to the join the one they're a member of. That usually means you start with like a Friendster account, get convinced to join Orkut (leaving your Friendster setup wilting ...), then you move to MySpace (and they both wilt). Then one day you remember your Friendster setup, and you go back in there to find now there's a bunch more people there.

Or at least I assume that's what people do. I don't have a MySpace account, but I do have an Orkut account (I don't think I've logged in for over a year) and a Friendster account (which I check maybe once a month). But, if you really cared about these networks and keeping your data up-to-date, wouldn't it be handy if you could update it in one place and have it magically update the rest?

That's my idea: to build MyFriendKut.com (I should probably removes some vowels to make it very Web 2.0). You'd setup your account on the site, and then give the logins to your social networking accounts (yeah, privacy issues, but whatever, it's all about convenience). The site would have a bunch of settings that are common to most of those sites. When you want to change something, you change it at the MyFriendKut.com site, and the site pushes it out. So then you keep all of your sites up to date through one interface, saving you time to stalk people on MySpace. Fun!

Better yet, maybe the site also throws up a tabbed interface or something that authenticates you to the social networking sites so that it's one-login-shopping. See! Amazing idea!

Now I just have to get motivated and build it. And probably check to see that no one has already built it. Then figure out how to make money off it. Sell out and become a millionaire. Just like the Underpants Gnomes.