Facebook
I joined Facebook this week. (http://www.facebook.com/). I was partly persuaded to to so by a colleague at work and partly by a radio article a heard a few weeks ago about 2 women who were addicted to it (one in favour, one against.) I aslo read about it the paper and heard my son mention it. Basically I was curious so I am giving it a go. Its a bit of a cross between a blog, instant messaging services like msn, myspace and friends re-united.

What I find strange is that people tend to use their real names and photos. They identify themselves by naming their workplaces and former schools, colleges etc. This goes against the grain a bit so I have started cautiously. I have my name and photo and city of residence but that is all. Initially the only people who can see this are the people you invite or accept as friends - but when you have someone as a friend you can see all thier friends too. (Presumably this is the same for you. Also you can join groups either based on interest or just where you live. If you post on any of these pages - anyone in this group can access your profile.

This makes me want to keep it pretty superficial.

The sorts of things pople put on their pages are interests, history and comments about what they are doing today - these are called status updates e.g. 10.47 baruch was writing his blog. You can also give friends a "poke" - letting them know you have looked at their page.

I'm not sure what the point is at present but I'm doing it for four reasons:-
1. I hate being left out of things and this is happening in a big way
2. I like fiddling around with my computer and checking to see if anything has changed a few times a day.
3. Facebook seems to be dominated by the young - and I'm sure that those of us who are longer in the tooth can add something to the flavour of this media.
4. Its another type of communication - like text, email, blog which allows me to communicate when I feel like it.

So - if any of my real friends would like to join me in this experiment of cyber friendship - send me an email and I'll send you an invite.