do all those things. And it waited here all this time, patiently expecting me to show up again, and provide an account of what i did. So yes, definitely worth it! 6 years ago

i have no idea what this whole thing was about, but yah, so now i have one less thing to do. 7 years ago

It’s a super new approach to social networking, but I’m not sure I want such details to be public. I don’t have a stratgey for this yet, and given that my foray onto MySpace resulted in me deleting all my contacts I don’t think I’ll be formulating one any time soon, but I’m not going to stop people who don’t know me writing nice things about me… or am I? 7 years ago

The subscriptions page rocks! Thanks again, Robots. 7 years ago

and the subscription feature is very well done there. I wonder whether I’ll be using some of the other site features? It does look like the private messaging feature could be useful as well. Some bugs, but I’ll report them once the dust has settled a bit. They might be gone by then anyway. 7 years ago

It is cool to see the blogs & flickr accounts of the people I subscribe to as well as all the various 43* entries. 7 years ago

I really like the new yearly summary, although there is a glitch in computing how long it took us to complete a thing (for example, some goals that I added as “I’ve done this” show that I took several months to complete), and places not yet visited are often showing up and “not worth visiting.” I’m sure the robots will fix those soon enough.
But overall, I think the summary page is very cool. 7 years ago

I have been playing around with the subscribe function of 43 people. Not only can you track people’s activity on the 43sites… but you can even add feeds to them. So I’ve added people who aren’t even on 43____ yet, and put their blog feed there, so http://www.43people.com/subscriptions is becomeing my feed reader for friends. 7 years ago

Once you get past the initial giddiness of being invited into something exclusive, there’s not really anytthing to make ya wanna go back. I’ll stay a part of it, and check it out every couple of weeks for shits and giggles tho. 7 years ago

I’m still waiting for more features on 43Peeps (some of which JoshP mentioned under another goal). Maybe I’ll feel differently when I get back to the states and can actually meet some people, but for now, the site has limited usefulness for me. But I am optimistically waiting. 7 years ago

My question is: How can meeting people change the world?

43people.com needs to have this type of energy. If you met such-and-such face to face, how could the two of you change the world? How would it help you complete the items on your 43things list? How would it make you a better person?

People I would like to meet:

Stevie Wonder to learn how to write an infectious groove
Bill Clinton to learn how to be friends with strangers
Elton John to share information on writing better musicals
Malc to give him presents for his 43 children 7 years ago

I like it, but I haven’t really gotten into it too much… primarily because I focus on 43things… but I guess if I come across someone I really enjoy and who I converse with alot on here I’ll add them… but nothing I take too seriously, unless I happen to fall in love with them or something (who knows?) :P 7 years ago

I ABSOLUTELY LOVE THE NEW “I WANT TO MEET THIS PERSON” BUTTONS ON 43 THINGS. ABSOLUTELY LOVE IT. 7 years ago

It is hard to measure usefulness i suppose. I can say thet beyond the initial kick of finding 43 things.com and adding my list to it, i have been in limbo for the mandatory period following the honey moon. Too many things are tugging at my ear, beggin to be attended to, for me to have kept the intense relation i had with this service/site/community in the beginning. Now i have begun coming back, considering more carefully the list i made, and start thinking about this as a tool to actually get some things done. So far it has made me begin/take up/restart some issues that i have had for years, hidden in some drawer ot other. So at the moment i must say i feel optimistis about the usefulness, but i think it requires me as a user to take it a little bit more seriously than i see many here do. 7 years ago

The best thing I’ve been able to do with it is to have a little private conversations with a few people from 43Things.

I do like the idea of considering carefully why I want to meet famous people. 7 years ago

To me 43people.com completes the whole 43experience and I wouldn’t want to be without it. 7 years ago

(in the An obsessive observer of sordid or sensational subjects sense) and author, I find 43 People a fantastic place to research characters. Folk write things they would NEVER say face to face, and this quasi-cryptic, quasi-discontinuous dialogue gives invaluable insights into how people organise their thoughts. And the thoughts of others (memes). 7 years ago

43 People hasn’t drawn me in. I’ve tried to tinker with it, but I still can’t see any real benefits. I guess that this will only work if you’re desperate to meet with certain people or else, you’re already part of one of the larger social groups on 43 Things. 7 years ago

It’s not exactly Friendster-like, which I never really played with in the first place, and, well, I really have yet to find something that I really could do with it… Nevertheless, it’s still interesting, albeit a bit much for me. :) 7 years ago

I couldn’t come with anything intelligent to do with 43people.com 7 years ago

After tweaking with it for some time, I can sadly say that 43people.com is not for me. I just couldn’t find what to do with it. 7 years ago

A more thorough investigation of 43 People is next on my list after NaNoWriMo, although I may add some this weekend to get it started. 7 years ago

How some people on 43things are comfortable with having a “real” presence on the internet – their photos, real names, etc and the rest of us who are not – (see: doggie avatar, silly screen name, etc.) Some of that has to do with having a preteen age daughter and not wanting weirdos to be able to figure out anything about us. Some of it has to do with not being happy with my weight and so I hate every picture ever taken of me lately. (Hmmm. Note to self: start working on those healthy goals).

How do you feel about this? 7 years ago

my lean on. It is a wonderful thing to be able to get my frustrations and happiness out in the open.

I am flattered by the people who subscribe to me, as they feel that what I am saying and my thoughts are worthy of their attention. However, I do not know who is subscribing to me and I would not change my entries as a tribute to them. So, thank you subscribers.

For the celebs, well, I just stay away from those topics. While I admire them, they are not even in the top 300 of my life.

This site is such a useful tool to beable to speak my mind and my heart to people who hold similar values, needs, and desires. It has also opened my eyes to another persons point of view.

I love this site. 7 years ago

Just my own angle on 43 People here. As a robot, I’m biased, but even from a biased viewpoint I understand some of the negative reactions people have to some social networking aspects of the site. We definitely didn’t set out to make Yet Another Social Network. There are some large and some small ways in which ours differs from others. Some small ones:

• the various types of stories people can write about each other, which we think changes the nature of these stories from “testimonials” into ongoing conversations of mutual interest
• the ability to add tags to people
• the ability to contact people without sharing e-mail addresses (a common feature on other sites but also a top request of our users)
• the “missing people” feature shown on the homepage
• the want-to-meet and have-met activity. As with our other sites, publicly declaring intentions like this tends to make them far more likely to happen.

We think those things distinguish our site from Friendster, et al. But what really trips my trigger is the subscriptions feature. There, I can keep current with the online creations of all my favorite people, whether on Robot Co-op sites or elsewhere on the web. Let’s take one particular friend of mine as an example. Here’s the content he creates on the web:

• 43 Things activity and content
• 43 Places activity and content
• 43 People activity and content
• Allconsuming.net activity
• Flickr photos
• A picture blog centered around his children
• Upcoming.org activity
• A personal picture blog
• Livejournal entries
• A blog centered around Seattle’s monorail politics
• Del.icio.us bookmarks and comments
• Netflix activity
• Seattle Public Library activity
• Consumating.com profile
• A myspace blog
• Photos from flickr tagged with his name
• Dodgeball.com activity
• A jobs feed (related to his work)

That’s a lot of feeds. I used to have to keep track of them all, read them each individually via an RSS reader, and magically know about new ones as they were created. But the truth is, I only ever knew about a handful of the places my friend was creating content. Now, I don’t have to know where all these things are, or where they might move in the future. I can keep track of it all with my one subscription on 43 People. Better yet, I can customize it – for instance, I might be interested in all these feeds except for his Netflix movies and Library activity. I can remove those feeds from my personal subscription, and just view the stuff I care about. That’s a pretty fantastic convenience. And the side effect of that convenience is that it’s trivially easy to keep learning about people I’ve known for years, in addition to people I’ve never met, and be reminded of why I like them every day. 7 years ago

We built 43 People for a number of reasons. First off, two of the top feature requests on ideas.43things.com were that we add a friends list and a way for users to contact other users. Second, we think there will be a lot of ways that we could innovate on 43 Things and 43 Places by connecting people in new ways. For instance, we could let you see who you have met (or want to meet) who have goals similar to you or have been places you want to go. I think there are a lot of ways this could help more informal mentorships or advice networks to develop. Lastly, we’ve been working on making subscriptions on 43 People really rock. I’ve kicked the habit of using a feedreader that sorts by blog title and really am enjoying reading all the postings from all the various places on the internet that the people I care about publish. If you haven’t investigated subscriptions, you are definitely missing out on one of the major features of 43 People.

One of the neat things I’ve seen happen with 43 People is that it helps people network in new ways. I’ve seen people I know show up on other people’s lists and I’ve made email introductions. When I said I wanted to meet Carlo Petrini the founder of Slow Food, Justini wrote an entry and told me he’d be in the USA in October. I did some looking around and found out he was coming to Portland. That was my impetus to go meet him, but knowing that I was going to write the story for the folks on the 43 sites emboldened me to talk to him, get a photo taken, and dramatically improved the whole experience. It was weird and awesome. I know of half a dozen meetings that have taken place on 43 People like this – and it is fun to watch.

I do think that if all you do is make a list of your subscribers or celebrities the site is going to be a rather static experience. Perhaps you ought to rethink who you really want to meet and why you want to meet them? Just like 43 Things, once you start to define your goals, it seems like the universe starts to bend your way, and soon you are making progress and learning more about yourself. I’ve had similar experiences with 43 People as I think about who I admire, who I want to meet, who I’ve met and who introduced me.

Lastly, like all our sites, it is a work in progress. It is super helpful to get feedback. 7 years ago

It’s weird how hesitant I am to add people to my 43Things list sometimes. I mean, it’s kind of monumental to meet some one you admire. There are a lot of times, though, that I find myself saying “I’d like to have lunch with X.” Sometimes it’s dinner, a bigger commitment. Usually actors, sadly, since I watch a lot of films and TV.

I dunno if I want to meet the actors I think are hot. In real life, I wouldn’t do anything about the attraction, so they’re better left unmet, probably. There are some, though, whose choices make me think they’d be very interesting in spite of the fact that I’d probably be dumbfounded by their heat. 7 years ago

i what to understand how to use all this data in 43things to make my life better.

my sinking suspicion is that 43things is a machinereadable application, not a human one, at least not till a machine can make some sense it. 7 years ago

I like the personal messaging system – it doesn’t get posted up on a board like everything else, so you can send email address or other sensitive information.

That’s mainly all I use it for, though, although I have had thread conversations there just like in 43t. 7 years ago