My Two Friends Worth

I just finished re-reading the recent study out of Duke University that concluded that the average American only has two real friends in his or her life.  That conclusion comes after a 20-year longitudinal study of people from all walks of life.  I, however, am confused by this news:  I know I have more friends than that. 

For example, when I recently joined myspace, I immediately received a welcome email from "my friend" Tom (Tom Anderson, myspace co-founder).  Apparently, I have a network there of 1,178,990 new-friend prospects (although to date, Tom remains my only myspace friend). 

In fact, my friends are coming out of the woodwork to find me.  Just today I received an email from Classmates.com telling me that eight of my long lost friends are looking for me.  Even more of my old friends would be happy if I attended the upcoming Lowell High School class reunion (I was class president, after all). 

I have so many business friends that I have to rely on websites like LinkedIn, Ecademy and Ryze to manage their comings and goings.  At Friendster, I even have a place to house my imaginary friends.  So, with that evidence to the contrary, how could this big fat study be so far off?

As always, it falls to that essential life riddle: it depends on what your definition of is is.

In his prescient book on the power of social networks, Love is the Killer App, Tim Sanders pointed out that friendship is "the act of intelligently and sensibly sharing...your knowledge, network and compassion" with others.  The operative ingredient here is compassion, it is the secret sauce that distinguishes a friend from a contact.  And it is that secret sauce that companies hope to exploit when they promulgate friend-to-friend (F2F) marketing.  To those with whom you share compassion, the theory goes, you also share influence.  Tapping into the influence one friend has over another, for marketers, is like freebasing. 

But, what if the Duke folks are better at conducting studies than policing frat houses, and what if each of us has but two friends with whom we can truly influence?  Won't that screw up a lot of well-thought-out business plans floating around Silicon Valley?  All those businesses whose hopes are pegged to the value--and volume--of our friendships?  But, while it may be hard to accurately measure the volume of friendships in our lives, it is pretty easy to measure the value.  Just go to jigsaw.com.  Each of your friends there is worth five points.