Ever since Multiply bravely explored the threshold at which people would stop being willing to sign up for every goddamn social networking service that pops up, the lemmingware industry has been struggling to figure out what new frontiers are left to innovate around. Behold aSmallWorld! They have created a new type of online community: The kind you can’t get enter. Trying to capitalize on gmail’s all-the-cool-kids cachet, they put the big "you’re not welcome" sign right on the homepage.

This past weekend I had the chance, for the first time in my life, to sleep in a home that’s in a gated community. It was mostly the same as any other big house, except a lot more inconvenient to leave when I wanted to go pick up some fast food. And, as far as I can tell, they let anybody in, just as long as they were willing to pay a lot for a big fancy house.

I’m betting aSmallWorld pretty much works the same way, which is sad since there really doesn’t seem to be any actual economic value to belonging to an online networking site.

Also, does anybody want to help me implement my weblog design in exchange for a Wallop invite? I’ve been too busy to do all the work myself.