I filed this story for the current issue of Wired Magazine on the uber-elite, invite-only online networking service known as A Small World. Snip:
When it happens, the expulsion is so genteel at first that you might not notice. There is no warning, no email notification, nothing. You think you're logging in to aSmallWorld, the ultraexclusive social networking Web site favored by supermodels, celebutantes, and Eurotrash. But instead of a blue homepage and postings about polo horses for sale or New Delhi nightclub recommendations, you see a green page and the lamentations of those outcast. You have been banished to aBigWorld – the dreadfully nonexclusive sister site of ASW.
"I log on every day to see if it's still green, or if they've let me back into the blue," confesses 22-year-old Talal bin Laden of Geneva. Bin Laden, a recent college grad, admits after some stammering that he's "distantly, distantly related to that guy no one likes." He says that ASW could definitely get ostentatious. "There were posts like, 'I'm going from Monaco to Lausanne tomorrow and need a private jet for one person.'" Still, he used to love hitting the site every day. "It's a great place to network or learn about different cities."
But bin Laden ran afoul of ASW policies when he participated in a thread that devolved into a flame war. "One guy posted some anti-Arab racist slurs, and I responded with a polite deconstruction of why I felt that was inappropriate," says bin Laden. "For that, I was evicted to hell."
Link.
