• Orkut has arbitrarily stolen some of my attention; the "only show my postal address to people I consider friends" feature is something I've been waiting five years for the Internet to do properly. "Friend" tends to be a uselessly subjective term online, but it looks like they're sorting it out.
• OK Cupid is now out of beta, and is beginning to cycle fresh questions in, making it back into a Nation States of personal introspection, with a few interesting people as prizes. They've also introduced precisely the sort of tiny, deniable communication that Matt Webb's been enthusing about - a quantum-sized method of initial, hesitant contact (the "woo") that can be painlessly ignored if the recipient isn't interested. ("Woos aren't really anything. Spend them wisely!") Very nice usage within a social-networking context; I can see this spreading everywhere.
• And Upcoming.org is exactly what Nik was trying to do three years ago with Decent Things - it's a directory of upcoming events all over the world, and if you tell it where you live it can keep you up to date and let you plot your future. It offers users a sidebarrable feed of their events to encourage them to fill the public database for their own, selfish sake, but still seems a very long way from critical mass. (It currently knows of no forthcoming events in... London.) I don't know if the new iCal support will make any difference.

"The "Oxtail soup" beverage offered as an option on drink vending machines is simply a way of disposing of the miscellaneous liquids that collect in the drip tray."