Why is everybody joining Facebook?

[dreamshark]

I've always had the impression that Facebook was basically a forum where you created a public advertisement for yourself and tried to get as many people as possible to "friend" you. As a sideline activity, you can apparently leave inane comments on your friend's sites and publish embarrassing pictures of the small subset of "friends" that you actually have met in person.

This sounds pretty awful to me, and I've been pretty much ignoring the whole phenomenon. But more and more people that I know seem to be joining. Maybe I've had the wrong idea about Facebook - maybe mixing it up with Myspace? I'm willing to revise my ill-informed first impressions. Have you joined Facebook, and what do you like about it? Should I join?

Comments

[cakmpls.livejournal.com]

I joined Facebook with the hope of connecting with some high school friends. It has worked fairly well; in fact, I started a group there for my graduating class.

[huladavid.livejournal.com]

I joined Facebook to find Jesus.

(The userpic I'm using is my guess at your reaction at reading the above. Praise Facebook! Hallaju-la-la-la-la-I-Can't-Hear-You!!)

[dreamshark.livejournal.com]

Hmmm. I hadn't realized that Jesus had a Facebook page. I'll bet his friends list is HUGE. Of course it's easy for Him; being able to exist outside of time and space has to make it esier to keep up.

[barondave.livejournal.com]

Apparently, Facebook has a major new, er, face since the summer. Not always to everyone's liking. Ads and such. I signed up in August, but didn't actually do anything until November, so I'm a bit of a newbie.

Your first paragraph is mostly about MySpace, though I don't have a MS account so don't deal with that aspect. One of the best things about FB, imrho, is that all Friends are reciprocal: You have to accept a Friend request (and they yours) and you are mutually Friends. Some people have a lot (Robert Sawyer bragged when he went over a thousand, prompting my neologism, the Kilosawyer, though Kilofriend might be more generic). You can also make groups for people to be part of, but I haven't done much of that.

There are also a staggering amount of "apps" of varying sorts. Some people like to play games, some just send each other fish or plants or whatnot. I've avoided the RPGs and such, and flinging fish has its limits.

Strengths: What Facebook does better than anyone, head over heals, is let you post pictures and have other people annotate them. You have unlimited space for albums (but only 60 pics per album). Once you've posted a picture, people can comment on the picture itself or "tag" Friends. Once you've commented, you'll be notified of anyone else commenting to that picture. Once you tag someone, they will be notified. If someone else tags your picture, you'll be notified. If someone tags you (or one of your Friends) in a completely different album, it will show up on your Home page.

Facebook is the fourth most accessed site on the web and has maybe ten times as many members as LJ. I did a little digging and am Friends with people I haven't seen in 30+ years, predating fandom. My family network is expanding. It's really an enormous amount of fun connecting with old friends, even if you don't do much more than connect with them and say "hi".

FB will suggest Friends, based on geography, interest or mutual Friends. Its surprisingly on target.

Because of its popularity, foafing is a blast. (Finding a "Friend of a Friend" by looking through their Friends list or your picture tags.) Even more fun than LJ. Old friends pop up in other's Friend's list. Sometimes nothing comes of it, but sometimes it comes full circle: Blue Petal just appeared on FB.

If you try, you can expand your circle of foafs pretty quickly. I don't recommend this, though again they have to accept (or you have to accept their invitation). I'm Friends with a bunch of people I'm not sure I've met, certainly not more than a few times, but who are Friends with 47 of my Friends so they're definitely in my circle. Even restraining myself from going out more than one layer of foafs, I have more than twice as many FB Friends as LJ Friends and that's in less than three months.

It's also really good for party and meeting announcements... which reminds me, I have to get to the Minicon meeting...

Should you join? Probably not. While people use it differently, to plunge in is a full time avocation. LJ is still better suited to thinking in paragraphs. FB is a toy, but it's a powerful toy. I've had fun. You might.

[dreamshark.livejournal.com]

Well, the picture thing appeals to me not at all - ESPECIALLY the idea of other people annotating my pictures. Mostly I'm not that into visual media, but when I do post pictures I do it in a very planned and controlled way - as a project like the Week in the Life meme, or as an illustration of a particular story I'm trying to tell.

Is Facebook primarily a visual experience? If it's based around pictures, it's definitely not for me.

I do enjoy the FOAF aspect of Linked-In, though, so that part of Facebook might be fun.

[magentamn.livejournal.com]

Not necessarily visual, but more so then LJ. One of the strengths of the photo tagging is that someone can post a group photo and other people can identify people in that photo.

Entries are much briefer than on LJ, usually just a sentence or two. I joined because a few friends are posting there, but not on LJ.

If you're at the pool party, I can tell you more about it. Warning, it's addictive.

[minnehaha.livejournal.com]

You can "untag" yourself in pictures so even if people tag you, it doesn't have to stay that way.

K. [I like it for playing scrabble, and because I have a different set of contacts there.... ]

[mle292.livejournal.com]

Why is everybody joining Facebook?

Sadly, because everyone else is.

I have a facebook and I have opinions, I feel almost as if I was born to comment on this.

Facebook has TONS more people on it than LJ, and I've found many folks that I haven't spoken to in years and it's very nice to be able to catch up with them.

Unfortunately, facebook is set up in the crappiest organizational format for communication ever invented. Sort of chronological, sort of random, sort of by what's deemed by facebook to be most interesting, completely annoying.

Emily does not like facebook because "Status updates" are limited to about two sentences, and are forcibly in first person. "Notes" are different from "status updates" for no good reason that I can discern.

[asimovberlioz.livejournal.com]

I joined Facebook because I decided it was marginally less stupid than Twitter.

[sunshinenilkcub]

I originally joined facebook because two of my in person current friends were on there and they got me to join so we could all play games and send each other stuff. Now one of my most favorite things about facebook is that I have reconnected with high school and college classmates that I thought I would never hear from again. And I have contact with my brother who never contacts me. And I still play lots of games. I do have about a dozen people who I don't know who I friended just to play a game. But I do have a good psychic gut intuition about who is safe to friend on there, so I have no worries about friending weirdos.

I think if you are careful who you friend, you are pretty safe on there. There's all kinds of games and applications that you can choose to be a part of not be a part of and there are pages about things you might be interested in that you can join, like I'm a part of a Minesweeper page and participate in Minesweeper tournaments. And I've joined causes that I am interested in hearing about. I've also answered lots of what are you kinds of quizzes.

I've never been a part of MySpace so can't compare that. I do think I'm on facebook too much, but it's also a nice thing to pass time if you are bored or want a break from housework or everyday activities.

[hakatrip.livejournal.com]

Facebook is fun!

Updates are brief instead of paragraph form like LJ. My relatives, including my mom, are on FB instead of LJ. FB has games. My fave game is Fairy Garden where we "grow" plants. I also enjoy playing Scrabble. I am in touch with many more people via FB than LJ, but I don't have to read pages of stuff to keep up with their lives. It's easier to access photos of people on FB.... so I know what all these people and their kids look like.

Both FB and LJ have their weak and strong points. I like both. LJ allows more in depth discussion. FB allows more networking, gaming, and superficial keeping up. Like... she married him? Aw look.... don't their kids look like him? They got snow again?!! Oh my, don't she look pretty in her red wedding dress? Hey.... she lives in that city we're visiting soon......

I think I'm getting it.

[romsfuulynn.livejournal.com]

I'm still figuring it out, but for people you actually want to update on what's going on, the short form required of the status updates is undemanding.

The What are you doing right now starting
Lynn is

e.g. Lynn is back home, getting ready for church. For my mother I'm looking at independent living options near me that transition to assisted/nursing home.

An LJ post would be a couple of paragraphs.

Microcontent

[tesla-aldrich.livejournal.com]

I find that I frequently don't have time to compose anything longer than this comment. For that reason, a forum geared toward quick, shallow updates works well for me.