Down with Facebook!

there's a lot of folk now who do networking primarily through fb nowadays.... especially in conflict resolution/ dialogue work- lot of workshops, meetings are organized that way. you post an event, send invites, they get sent further -- sure...you could do that via email, but it's much faster and spreads much further via fb, it just does- i'm not sure why and it doesn't really matter why i guess, what matters is that if you want to get a word out, you have far better chances for it to be picked up and heard.

rallies as well - you can mobilize people in a matter of hours if you need to. i led petitions this way for example. the president i talked about has her campaign revolving around facebook to a large extent (at least the part targeting mostly young people/artists/activists --all those that use fb daily). i form groups for specific purposes and join and leave groups for the same reason -- when i go for work to bosnia, like now, i'll look into groups from there with similar professional background, contact people... within groups, you organize targeted events, lead discussions, share links -- possibilities are really nearly endless.

EVERYTHING i do on facebook could be done through other means -- but it would be much slower or i wouldn't find as much or reach the same amount of people. it's about power and efficiency to me. my friends from combatants for peace do great work through facebook for israel-palestine for example. it's like an internet within internet really....what you look for is up to you and you only. i myself am bad with email, and facebook is a far more effective medium for me to reach and be reached -- but we are all different and i'm sure fb is not for everybody.

many people use fb only for professional purposes. at least in my network.

And one other thing i find very useful ---then i will shut up, i promise --- is links that my friends post. it's like an RSS feed by people i value and esteem. There is a "hear more from XY" or "hear less from XY" option - so I can choose who i want to get updates from and who, while i want them in my network, i am not so interested in following. I have journalists and writers and artists in my network -- so often articles they post are of great interest to me and i would not come by them otherwise... not even on a2k. that is precisely because people in my network are of similar background and interests, so i know that link that John posts will likely be worth reading, while what Larry posts might be obscure yet fascinating -- well, i guess that would be the same here....it's just that facebook has tons of these little features all in one place, so if you customize it right, it is a damned handy tool for work, cultural, social life...whatever you're looking for. yes, gossip too- if you're into it.

I'm on the outside -

I don't really want the only other child in the building when I was eight to connect to me now about her difficulties with getting laundry done right, but I'd also like to say hi.

I had a high school friend trace me recently, just about the last person in the school I'd like tracing me. On the other hand, that was fairly innocuous re possible vile people online; she isn't vile, never was, still isn't.

I do get it that I could orchestrate who I friend and vice versa. I'm a little icked by the friend thing, as in, you're kidding, but am listening to this conversation here.

You can subscribe to his rss feed without joining. I never go to the twitter site myself, and use it through its various tools.

I still don't get rss feed - that means you get more emails? What do I need with more emails (as the internet is not my business place)? I am guessing rss is not just right for me, nor twitter, however different they are. Not so sure about facebook.

not necessarily, osso. for example, if you have gmail, you have various tabs on top. one where you can store documents (so you can access them anywhere where there is internet), one is a calendar....etc...and one is your reader. there you can customize your RSS feed -what news you'd like filtered in there. So when you feel like it, you go there, when you don't....you don't have to. alas, i use it too, but for work only - as a media monitoring tool.

Ah, of course. That's much better, actually, I'll just use the RSS then.

Reminds me of Deb's anti-iPhone thread.

Which, of course, culminated, without actually ending, in deb buying an I-Phone.

i-phone? Iphone?

Heh.

I've already highlighted some of the reasons that I personally like Facebook, but another one is a way to be in direct contact with parts of my family I'd had to rely on my mom to get news about. They just don't really "do" email, but do Facebook. So it was through a status update (now called "what's on your mind?" instead of "what are you doing?", btw) that I learned that someone I'd been very close to for several years was dying. And got an email to her before she died. My mom knew about this but forgot to tell me. (Hard to describe the relationship -- she was my aunt's husband's daughter from a previous marriage who came to live with my aunt and uncle for several years, about 11-14 I think -- she was one year older than me and the cousin who lived closest to me, and we thought she'd be living with my aunt and uncle indefinitely so she'd be a "real" cousin, and we were very close. Things went south though and she went back to live with her mom, and she and I lost contact. It was my "real" cousin -- a daughter this aunt and uncle had much later -- who tipped me off with a "....is praying for my older sister" status update. I sent her a message once I figured out who she was talking about and had a really good conversation with her, including telling her a lot about the person who was dying since my cousin barely knew her. Sigh.)

i like facebook, it's an easy way to keep tabs on family, especially my two nephews, and some distant cousins

i've done a few of the quiz things there, but can't really get into the pillow fights or "second life" kind of applications

as for twitter, i've made on update to my account, but use it to follow a couple of radio shows (the one host shares behind the scene info and pics of guests and odd things from the studio) and a music blog (the owner posts links on his twitter that aren't on the blog)

I have reconnected with several old friends and even a relative through facebook...one of which made a road trip from the Va Beach area to visit...I hadn't seen her in 30 years and we were best friends in my ECU days....she met squinney and now she's coming up for my birthday thing in May.

that alone was worth having a facebook account....although I hate the new homepage and some of the stuff that you get thrown at you is a little tiresome.
Myspace is easier to use IMO.

I wish both of those sites would make it easier to send out event invitations, which is one of the main reasons I'm there. I have seen attendance at my shows positively affected by using that tool.

Yeah, me neither. I have something like 104 lil green patch requests that I haven't done anything with, and I don't think I've poked anyone or have been poked, ever. Main things I do are:

- Read status updates (I have one friend who updates hers about 5 X a day and they're regularly hilarious -- she's gifted)
- Comment when I'm so moved (frequently leads to interesting conversations)
- Send messages (private -- for some reason a few regular email correspondences have moved to Facebook, no particular reason, just started talking there and we like the threaded aspect I guess)
- Post photos (one of the easiest way to get sozlet pics to extended family)
- Look at other people's photos (just found a photo of sozlet at age 3 in someone else's photo -- a future friend was standing next to her at a magic show, and that friend's mom posted and asked me if that was sozlet, it was)
- Comment on photos when I'm so moved
- Update my own status when so moved (maybe once a week, average)
- Check in on groups (some of them are amazing, like the one for the housing co-op I used to live in)
- Play Scramble or Scrabble with my aunt-in-law (E.G.'s aunt, who is fabulous, and who is a pretty even match -- she tends to win Scramble, I tend to win Scrabble, but it's always close).

you can block applications - either all or some -- that way you don't get no annoying notifications about dragon wars or mafia wars or whatnot.

Eh, I just ignore it. I pay attention to new friend requests but let the rest accumulate.

(Just found a pic of a friend at age 10 or so with a very young, snaggletoothed Marlee Matlin at about the same age -- tempting to post but I won't.)

Funny Twitter-related post and comments:

And then it hits you...

Ha! I liked M8B.

psst... where is this? I've looked but can't find it. Would be useful.

I'd like to know too. I had to defriend an acquaintance because he was a status hog.

when you're on your homepage and you take your mouse to the right of any update, there should be a cross. When you hover on the cross, it will say "Hide XY" -- and from then on, voila, no status updates from XY.

They used to have also "hear more" -- but it seems that everything gets dumped into your homepage now (it used to be selective before). There used to be sliding scales (I want to hear this much about this person and that much about that person - but now you can just "hide" someone. I hid a few people who announce everyday when they arrive to work and when they have their coffee. Don't miss their updates, yet want to keep them in my network...so this works.