>there are only a handful of people who you should really care to keep tabs on
I don't consider myself an extreme socialite, but as someone who has lived in 3 states in the US and whose friends are scattered around the world after getting a degree here, this sounds really, really, really perverse.
That said, most of my use of Facebook is not to keep tabs on the people I care about (a lot of them don't use Facebook much, if at all).
The product that the OP described already exists: it's called a chat room (IRC channel, Skype group chat, Telegram channel, Whatsapp group chat, etc).
I really liked the idea of Google+ circles. Creating "containerized" groups of people (things?) that I could act on in a complete unique way was really cool. I could say something in my "friends" circle that I couldn't (or would be misunderstood) in my "family" circle. I could also keep track of technology (Linux, Tesla, etc.) in another, completely separate, area.
I wish that a "social" network would bring back the idea of Circles.
I don't consider myself an extreme socialite, but as someone who has lived in 3 states in the US and whose friends are scattered around the world after getting a degree here, this sounds really, really, really perverse.
That said, most of my use of Facebook is not to keep tabs on the people I care about (a lot of them don't use Facebook much, if at all).
The product that the OP described already exists: it's called a chat room (IRC channel, Skype group chat, Telegram channel, Whatsapp group chat, etc).