In the past, I've complained here about always being invited into these social and business networking deals like LinkedIn and Grouply. I didn't see what any of them did for me that the plain ol' vanilla World Wide Web didn't, plus I had a bad feeling about some of these services. They reminded me of the loonier religious cult movements where you join and are instantly told that you now have an obligation to get all your friends to join and won't get as much out of your own belonging if you don't. Also, I have my e-mail and Internet routines all configured to work for me and didn't want to move any of it over to someone else's format, nor did I see any advantage to me.
But I broke down and joined Facebook, and so far I'm glad I did because I've actually "networked" to the point of reconnecting with several folks I haven't connected with in many years. I don't care for the fact that if we exchange messages through Facebook, that mail does not wind up stored on my computer like normal e-mail…but so far, I'm enjoying the connectivity.
At the moment, I have 268 Facebook "friends," many of whom I even know. I like seeing the quick lists of what they're all up to and I like being able to occasionally catch someone online and jump into a quick chat, even if it's only to exchange phone numbers and move to voice contact. I still haven't figured out some of the odder features, like what it means to "poke" someone or what the deal is with giving "gifts." But I suppose I'll either master these things or figure out I don't need them. I could also do without constantly being "tagged" with these challenges where I'm supposed to list 25 things I wish I hadn't put in my mouth or 36 parts of my body I shave or whatever.
Oh, look. I just checked and in the last 20 minutes, I got two more "friends"…and they're both people I actually know! At this rate, everyone I know will be on Facebook in about five more years and we can rename the whole thing. We can call it The Internet.