Facebook

It seems that Facebook has been all the rage around here lately. It has even made the front page of the school newspaper. I have been casually tinkering it for the last couple of weeks and I think I'm ready for a rough review.

First of just what is Facebook? Facebook is community site that is based around schools, be it high school or college. This is mostly what separates it from the run of the mill community site. You let Facebook know what school you are attending or where you have attended in the past. That way old-long forgotten friends can find you again. If you are currently enrolled at a school you can tell Facebook about your class schedule to enable you to link up with other students in the class.

Once you have found people you can declare them as a friend and vice-versa. There is also a group section to create school groups based on clubs, sports, other such groups or just any old interest. Also you can inform other students at your school about parties or other get-togethers. Messages can be swapped back and fourth between just about anyone as well. With a little bit of money, you can buy an ad to inform everyone at your school about whatever it is you wish to advertise for ten bucks a day. There are a variety of privacy options to help prevent stalkers or other types of predators.

I really like Facebook's capacity for social networking. Finding long-lost contacts is a fun thing to do. You can also get to know your friend's friends as well. The social networking element is ruined a bit by an epidemic of people adding anyone who is vaguely familiar as a friend. For this reason I will only seek out some people to add as a friend and confirm those who add me. Because of this, my account is currently sitting at less than ten friends while others have more than a hundred.

The groups feature is also another weak link. Available groups seem to be listed randomly and I haven't come across a way to simply list them. Also the features has become polluted by superficial groups such as, "Seward Smells Like Cows!" and "I Drink Soda - Not Pop..." which serve little purpose other than to complain about things that can't be changed. Names have been poorly chosen in many groups with names such as, "Relient K Rocks My Face Off!" and "One Tree Hill Is the Best Series Ever!" It would seem to me that it would be better to call them something like, "Relient K Klub" or "One Tree Hill fans." I suppose those might be too mundane, but surely people can come up with clever group names that don't sound like the dialogue between two highschool girls. There are some groups that seem more sensible like the Singers which is for one of the choirs in the music program.

Finally, we are left with the more informational features, parties and ads. I can definitely see a use for the parties features in inviting people and coordinating events. I will likely use it when I have my Star Wars saga marathon in November. The ads seem to be a great way to advertise to a student body, provided the Facebook fad doesn't wear out. I might take an ad out to get service requests for my GS301 project.

All-in-all Facebook has some neat features. A lot of it's problems are not caused by Facebook but those who use it. I don't quite understand people's fanaticism for the service, it's not that great. But then again I never understood the mass's obsession for services things like Xanga or Hotmail. That's why I choose things like the more elegant Blogger and Gmail. As far as Face book goes, I'll check it every couple of days and see what's up. I'm not likely to devote my life to this little social tool as some people have.