x-posted:

Just few thoughts on Facebook (yawn). If you're reading this and you do not have an account or know what this is, you're missing out on a world that is, well, unnecessary I suppose, but happening and expanding without you - how much does that matter to you? (Mom - you're exempt for not being a part of this: privacy out the window and it was originally set up for students, as the name suggests. You'd loathe it.)

I have not gone onto Facebook and actively searched for anybody, but I do accept those prompts from people whom I have met in person before and confirm him or her as a "friend" online. (Note: I have indeed rejected people that I have never met before who have tried to add me as a friend. This is not something I practice across the board in social networks, just this one.)

Facebook is just one of many social softwares I have played with or participate within, and what I do like about it is this:
1. It's yet another place to connect online and open up your community, life, profile, whatever - promote you, yourself, your life, profile, whatever.
2. I have reunited (online!) with some wonderful, long-lost people of my past, and it's not in an in-my-face way either, just a friendly gesture, a hello, which ultimately, is all we have time for anyway.
3. I am entertained. And I laugh. At some of the random thoughts, lines, groups (aka "Bob Cole IS a God" group - that was truly an "I love Facebook" moment).
4. It puts social networking and online communities in the mainstream and introduces those people unaware of this power of online connecting in the forefront - bring it on.

What I do not enjoy so much:
1. The Wall - I don't need to have conversations with people in public... email still works for me, plus, I get this public conversation desire or fix satisfied through blog comments and flickr.
2. The Time Sucker - not to me, but some of my friends have lost the plot.

And what about being found by the wrong person? Ack! For me, that's pretty much out the window with this little thing called a search engine. But, it's interesting to note that all of those blasts-from-the-past are all of sudden finding me via this tool, not Yahoo! or Google. If you're playing on Facebook, you don't care who finds you. And if you do care, you're not on Facebook.

The best way this social network was described, in my opinion, was in an article in The Globe and Mail a few weeks back about "grown-ups" getting their Facebook fix - it was something to the effect of comparing the gossip-esque site to "water cooler talk".

Most common phrase to me in the initial 'message sent to you' category:
"My friends made me sign onto this".
Most common phrase from those same people after a few days/weeks/months:
"I am addicted to Facebook!".