Last night I did something I hadn’t expected to do: I signed up for Facebook. As Terry Dullmaier almost immediate wrote on my Wall: “Apparently we all end up on Facebook eventually!”
Indeed. And I guess I signed up for Facebook for the same reason I bought an XP machine: Sooner or later, I’m going to need to know something about it, so why not now? I was a little boggled at how many people I know are on there, including both of my nephews and most of my friends, some of whom go wayyyy back. (Terry and I went to Catholic grade school together. Dominus vobiscum and all that.)
So I’ve been doing a fair bit of frittering this afternoon, trying to make sense of it all as both a technology and a phenomenon. There are games like Farmville and Mafia Wars that I have no intention of playing, but which are interesting to watch. And refreshingly little politics, though I’ve already been warned that it’s out there. I’m just not looking hard enough. Thanks; I’m looking as hard as I want to.
I’m not sure what all it’s good for yet. I already have a blog in two places and plenty of Web pages, and the amount of email that shoots through here gets scary sometimes. Do I need any more social machinery? I’m not looking for a job (there’s plenty of contractor work for me if I want it) or a girlfriend (I’m very happy with the one I’ve had for forty years now) and whatever else I might need I generally find on Amazon, ABEBooks, eBay, Craigslist, or NewEgg.
It’s always good to be findable, but I think I was pretty findable before. I need to post covers of my books in an album, especially now that a new one’s in the chute. Beyond that, I stand a little puzzled before the whole thing. If you’ve got some insights as to how Facebook is best used (beyond the obvious: “sparingly”) definitely drop them in the comments.
