In an era when information technologies are given enough power to start war against human civilization and actually win it, few soldiers of humanity are still fighting for our future. They reach out and find enlightenment through the only remaining alternative for communication the World Wide Web.

It could be true, but it’s not. The enlightened are a constantly growing group of people who have truly found an alternative for communication through the World Wide Web, but only for their own pleasure. The search for people with similar interests is made much easier by a variety of websites which seem to be well known to college students and apparently most of all to Obies.

Obiematch launched off last year and was initially thought as a dating service, which one can tell from all the hearts that pop-up and start flying toward you as soon as your browser connects to the page. It was part of a series of college “match” sites which started with Wesleyan and then spread to Williams, Bowdoin and Colby.

Through ObieMatch, students can send each other tender messages and see if something clicks between them. After that follows a cyber-date and cyber-breakfast of course.

“Nobody uses Obiematch for dating,” said sophomore Mary-Liz Critchlow. “It’s really gross to find out you are compatible with your friends.”

She commented on how weird it is to see on campus people who you know are compatible with you, and to know their names. She said that her personal favorite social network site is Friendster.com, a network that has existed for a few years and is not strictly limited to college students.

The Friendster database is huge mostly because friends can add the friends of their friends to their own friend’s lists and thus send them messages and create profiles for them as well. Basically there are more than two or three flexible ‘generations’ of friends, who are constantly changing and inter-relating. As a result of that a network is established and many faces can be seen on different profiles.

Friendster profiles, located on the borderline between instant messaging and web-forums, have the potential to be really entertaining, especially when instead of your own picture you upload a picture of Kermit the Frog or a big purple dog or even Mr. Bean. A partially exposed Janet Jackson is a popular option since the last Super Bowl. Accordingly, the people behind the pictures can also be surprising.

“There are many child stars on Friendster,” Critchlow said. “I once met Jonathan Taylor Thomas from Home Improvement. I remember him from when I was little, he was really hot stuff back then. I knew his real name was Jonathan Weiss and he was on there sometimes.”

Among many fake celebrities like ten Tom Cruises, a few Brad Pitts and others, Democratic challenger John Kerry has been detected on the site as well.

“It’s a really good way of stalking people,” Critchlow said.

“I think that it’s actually going to be sites like Friendster and Facebook (and, of course, obiematch) that reinvigorate our sense of community,” said sophomore Charles Sohne.

“With the invention of television people became less social, kept in touch less.”

Friendship networking provides a perfect opportunity to keep in touch with people who are no longer with you.

“I can see where all of my high school friends are and where they go to college and all of their friends too, who they talk about all the time,” said Critchlow.

Sohne also thinks that Friendster provides the opportunity to keep in touch with someone without having the need for a good reason, as it is with a phone call or even an e-mail.

“People move around a lot more often than in the days of smaller communities,” he said. “This has led to isolation. Friendster, however, fights this problem.”

There must be other reasons too, otherwise why would spend so much time online, writing messages to people who are only ten-minutes away at the most?

“Okay, but the real reason that Friendster is cool is that writing testimonials for people is really fun,” Sohne said.