You are what you own

I was reading a paper on social networking this morning, and in it, the author makes the offhand comment that any truly successful social networking solution would need to offer a place for users to describe their most prized posessions because of the innate desire for people to talk about what they own. Shocked and surprised by this "assumed truth," I figured I would fact check the author. Pimp my ride alone should have told me that possession fan sites would not be a hard thing to find...

Here's just a sampling of sites you can go to to post/chat/brag about what you own:

• Cars: Features an innovative front splash entitled: Showoff of the week. Quote for today: "You won't see another car on the road like Richard's S2000. He designed his own body kit and airbrushed the car himself!" 1.2M users and counting. Mind you, Lexus has their own forum.
• Yachts: So many sites on this that I decided just to pick the one with the most retro graphics.
• iPods: I'm thinking of joining this one - if for no other reason then their awesome logo.
• XM Radio: The photo gallery of XM installations is amazing to me because most of the shots (and here's a prime example) aren't special, custom, or even all that interesting. They are what they are - a picture of their XM installation. I could understand going to the trouble of submitting it if you had some really clever installation, but when your installation looks like you just bolted it onto your dashboard, is that really brag worthy? Who am I to decide - maybe getting it on your dashboard is actually quite a feat.
• Robots: Mind you, if I had a robot, I would be bragging about it on my blog every day. Even moreso if my robot danced. I'm waiting for the robosapien club to start a splinter faction. (Man, he has so much bling.)
• Fiestaware: There's even a documentary on the collecting of Fiestaware
• Aibos: This french aibo fan has 40 of 'em!
• Segways: Of course. The post about Segway RMP marries Robonaut is my favorite :)