Don Park invited me to join Orkut this morning (thanks Don!, see also Don's post about his experience), which is a new social networking site that I first heard about via Marc Canter yesterday.

It seemed like lots of people were on Orkut this morning, getting invited in, and inviting others. Basically, it reminded me of a lot of people arriving at a hotel on the same day and connecting with each other about the fact they had arrived and checked-in.

Because many of the connections I was making via Orkut today were with people I already know online through similar interests, the experience was kind-of like arriving at a tech conference and finding out who was there before you and who got there after you, etc.

I guess these sites are essentially places to go to meet people. (Am I dense that I didn't get that before?) It is like a singles' cruise or Linux cruise, or some other situation that suggests that you could meet someone interesting by going to the same place at the same time as a bunch of other people and trapping yourself there long enough to meet others and get into some mischief.

I always think there is going to be some future means of online social networking that does not involve this kind of trapping yourself in the same location as others, but, like a hotel, this trapping is generally a means to other ends and I am sure these will continue to be useful in that way.

I was thinking it would be fun if a new social networking site launched every weekend, and so every weekend you had to try to get invited and then could have that 24-48 hours of excitment getting to be part of the original crowd, etc, but could then move on to the next location. Orkut was certainly fun in this way today!