Sucked into Facebook.

I told myself I was done with social networking websites at least a year and a half ago.  Basically, there are so many of them -- and if you are to make any investment of time and energy into them, the opportunity cost is simply too high for me.  I joined Friendster back in the day; at the time, it was the only option.  I really got into it.  I'd update my profile all the time, look for friends, make requests, and all that other good stuff. 

The came MySpace.  I basically took all my crap from Friendster and re-posted it there.  No way was I going to bother with customizations, new content, uploading Mp3's of any of that.  I'd already invested enough time and energy into Friendster, only to lose interest in it (as many others did) -- and in social networking in general.  Given that I already am the chief maintainer of this weblog, the enhanced functionality and features of MySpace simply didn't add much to my life.   Basically, I only log in to MySpace to check and respond to messages from others.

So why did I bother at all?  Simple: I wanted to provide people I met/know with as many different ways to contact me as possible.  Having a profile on each site made me available to everyone in each network.  It's netted me contact with a bunch of people I lost touch with (particularly from high school)...and I was even happy to hear from many of them. 

That's why I joined LinkedIn.  It's basically like the aforementioned sites, except focused on work.  Having a LinkedIn profile seems like a responsible thing to do. 

So you can imagine that when Facebook rose to prominence, I was skeptical.  Another social networking site?  How many can there be?  Why should I care?   Dave told me that it was just better.  He tried to explain why, but it was hard to put into words.  I eventually joined, again to stay networked.  I didn't do much to my profile, and still haven't: it just has a few pictures and some basic details of my life and work status. 

Here's the thing: Dave was right.  Facebook is just better. For one thing, it's much more focused on the 'networking' aspect as opposed to the attention-whore aspect.  It's much easier to add friends and keep track of how you know people.  It provides you with several more communication options and privacy settings than the other sites do (although those other sites are catching up).  It allows tons of file space for photos, but you can keep each photo (relatively) private.  And it lacks that sexual predator stench that MySpace picked up all too quickly.

Yet I still wasn't hooked until I started hanging out with people who used Facebook heavily.  That's how I got sucked in.  Between communicating with people whose e-mail addresses I don't have, checking notifications and responding to invitations, I now check Facebook more often than I ever would have imagined.  I still don't get insane with posting, downloading and all the rest, but I'm all about keeping in touch -- and the site makes everything really easy.  Damn...who woulda thought?

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