Facebook or MySpace or any other social networking site because they were stupid.
I was wrong.
Sure, people can take them much too seriously. Just like message boards.
But what I am finding really really neat is the way my friends are interconnecting just because they all know me.
Example:
My status said: How does a 2 month old get dirt under his fingernails? Has he been gardening when I’m not looking?
I received two responses. My friend Margo said if he was gardening send him her way to help her. Then my friend Teresa said and after he’s done at Margo’s send him to me.
Margo and Teresa have never met. Will never meeting. Are in no way connected except that they both know me. Margo lives in the UK. Teresa in the US. I know Margo through one message board, Teresa through another.
There have been other, more involved conversations amongst people on my friends list in response to my status updates. I find it fascinating.
People also ask me if all 114 people listed as my friends are actually people I know. Most of them are. Recently I have added people I don’t really know because I play a few Facebook games where you get further in the game the more people you friend who also play the game. So I have responded to some requests on some message boards to be friended for that purpose. The games are Farm Town and Farmville if anyone wants to neighbour me!!
But that’s about 10 people out of 114. Have I met them all in real life? Nope. But they are really my friends. People I speak to daily via various venues. Or they are my family! Ya know, people I’m related to via blood or marriage!
And through them I speak to people I would never have had met. And they do the same through me.
It ain’t called the World Wide Web for nothing…
That’s what I like about Facebook, too.
And hey, think of us…we’ve never met in person, but have worked and played online together (off and on) for more than 10 years.
Ain’t the Internet grand in that aspect? 🙂