I'm playing around with Google's Orkut community software, and it's pretty cool. It's basically like Friendster, except much less annoying (from what I can tell so far). I recommend giving it a try... searching through the "communities" for topics of interest can be a little addicting.
Update:
For example, here's a list of communities I've joined so far.
2nd Amendment
80s
A.I. Programming
America Rules!
American Politics
Artificial Intelligence
Artificial Life
Artificial Thinking
Back To The Future
Bible
Big Trouble In little China
Bill Murray
Bloggers
Bruce Campbell
Buffy
BushIn2004
Calvin and Hobbes
Capitalism
Cato University
Christian
Christian Friends
Christian Singles
Christopher Walken
Computer Science
Concealed Firearms
CTY
Discordians
Dungeons & Dragons
Election 2004
Eliza Dushku
Embedded Systems
Fallout
Fallout 2
Free-Market Capitalists
Ghostbusters
Girls with brains
Guns
Hackers
Halloween
Hip Guys for Hot Geeky Girls
Illuminati
Indiana Jones
Late Night with Conan O'Brien
Law & Order
Libertarians
Lord Of The Rings
Military
Military Technology
Monty Python
No more Communism
Old School
Orkut's Most Beautiful People
Republicans
reversi / othello
Roleplaying Games
Save Ferris!
Sherlock Holmes
Shining Force
Short Fiction
Silmarillion
Sixteen candles
South Park
Spike
Star Wars
Stephen King
The Art of War
The Dark Tower
The Goonies
The Nightmare Before Christmas
The Princess Bride
The Simpsons!
Tolkien
UCLA
UCLA Engineering
Unfortunate Events
Vampires
Venice Baptist Church
What's she trying to say?
Wheel of Time by Robert Jordan
Will Ferrell
Wizardry
Women Who Wear Skirts
Worshippers Of Eris
Don't you have to have an invitation to actually join?
I've always thought of these sorts of things as kind of smarmy. Yet, I don't think of you as a smarmy guy, so explain to me how this isn't smarmy.
M: I'm not sure how you mean "smarmy". It doesn't strike me as particularly different from AIM or a blog.
B: I don't think so.
I tried to join, sounds cool. But you DO need an invite.
"Women Who Wear Skirts?" Michael, I never knew!
Oh, by smarmy I mean, a cheesy way for some desperate people to hook up.
M: Hm, I think it's more of a generic networking thing than a hook-up thing. But I suppose any such system could be used for that purpose.
Megan: Oh, and I just adore women who wear skirts.
This thing is like crack. Once you start moving around in it you are hooked.
I got one of my coworkers to invite me. You do have to have someone who is already on invite you. Guess that insures you have at least one friend.
Megan: It is set up for finding a date - you can put that desire in your profile, but other listed purposes include finding friends, activity partners, or business networking.