I can feel my fingers curling as I write this post, and I can feel my peers looking on in dismay, but I have to say, I continue to love Facebook. I am not sure what it is about it, but it really is helping me stay abreast of what my friends are doing, is genuinely useful for keeping in touch with long-lost pals and is generally easy and uncluttered to use. Mind you, I would like to have a special button that instantly removes people the planet, erm, I mean…from my friends list, who have anything to do with Zombies, Vampires or other such nonsense.
Despite this, in Boston a week ago I heard someone say “I am totally going to friend you“. At this point my eyeball removed itself from the socket with rage. Nevermind, I guess the vernacular needs to reflect the current state of the art.
Oh! What is worse is when you hear somebody telling you they will ‘Bebo you’. Gawd I hate it!
I haven’t much got into facebook. I should really look at it at some point. 🙂
I’m thinking of adding something along the lines of “Zombies, Vampires and Movie Quizzes make Baby Jesus cry”. If I had any hair left I’d have teared it out by now.
That said, Facebook (and maybe a couple others) really is the only acceptable “Social Networking” site. Myspace makes my ears bleed, Bebo sounds like the fifth Tellytubby, and I seem to have an in-built mental firewall blocking most of the others.
While FB does have a certain younger fadishness (is that a word?) about it, I have found it really helpful for staying in touch with family that is spread all over.
Facebook is strangely compelling. Like you, I normally hate the whole social networking stuff and, until Facebook came along, believed that social networking sites were for kids under 16 with far too much time.
I think Facebook made a wise move by starting with the university crowd. It gave it a solid base and by the time they opened it up, everyone not in a university was clawing at it so they could keep in touch with their friends at uni.
I just wish the news feed settings had a slider for “Applications” that you could put right down to the bottom.
As for the phrase “I’m going to friend you”, why not? Last I heard Facebook accounted for roughly 1% of internet traffic, that’s a large chunk. If “to google” can be accepted (by most) as a verb, why not “to friend”?
I wish Facebook was popular in the Netherlands… It’s Hyves here, and really, you’re going to have a hard time trying to find a site designed worse than that. And then the customized profile pages yuck…
http://tech.karbassi.com/2007/08/27/facebook-profile-cleaner/
I have you on my friends list 🙂
Mwhaha I’ve totally just friended you
:shock:WTF! Will Thompson, you clever bastard. Where has this been all my life!