Benet points us to a new initiative by Lufthansa to get into the student travel market by running a social networking site. It provides forums, games, and access to special fares. It’s nice that Lufthansa is reaching out to this demographic, but I don’t know how useful it will prove. I’m no longer a student, so I’m not eligible to sign up, but I don’t think I would if I could. The proliferation of social networks is actually a pain for me. Who wants to have so many log-ins and passwords? I try to limit my exposure, and for this reason, I love Google, through which I follow blogs via RSS, use email, maintain my calendar, comment on Blogger-based blogs, and participate in groups. Facebook, a real social network, has the same sort of thing going on — instead of letting people run all over the web, people can bring everything under one roof. I like OpenID, which allows me to use a log-in for one site at others. That’s what I’d prefer, and if Lufthansa wants to reach folks like me who want to enjoy some simplicity in our frenetic online lives, they’d be of a mind to introduce useful applications for existing social networks and aggregation sites, not necessarily to create ones of their own.
