"Can I say you're my girlfriend on Facebook?"

Like I said, all US college students do this these days.

It's different from MySpace b/c you have to have an email with the associated university to have a page. if you have a utexas.edu email you can't link up to people at ugeorgia.edu. if you're just gmail.com then you can't do either.

AHAHAHAHAHAHA!!! :)

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Facebook%27s_use_in_investigations

wikipedia:

Privacy Settings

Facebook contains privacy settings that individuals can set to prevent school administrators or other groups from accessing their profiles or photos. Under the "My Privacy" settings page, a facebook user can select which of the following groups are allowed to view a page:

* Undergrads
* Grad Students
* Alumni
* Faculty
* Staff

However, there is no guarantee that school administrators or law enforcement agencies will not choose to identify themselves falsely on Facebook, or that they cannot gain access to profile information via other means.

1. My girlfriend just graduated from college last year (2005) and doesn't have a Friendster or MySpace profile but does have a Facebook profile. This makes me feel old. However, I think what she likes about Facebook is that it is relatively closed off to the outside world, whereas I don't generally care what yahoos have a gander at my drunken photos.

2. I was at a frat party at the Univ. of Chicago a couple months ago ... an ILXor invited me, and I went for the anthropological experience as much as anything, really. Anyway, so I'm talking to this BMOC in a felt cowboy hat, who's somehow convinced that I had been dancing with this girl he has a crush on named Allison. (The only girl I'd been dancing with was this gawky philosophy major named Ethel who hurriedly told me within the first minute, "By the way, I don't wanna hook up with you, I have a boyfriend." Whatever!) I try to deny it at first, but he's not upset or anything, his attitude is more like "good for you, bro -- she's fuckin' hot, isn't she?" -- so eventually I agree that yes, I was dancing with Allison. "You know what you can do for me?" he slurs. "You can have her look me up on Facebook. That's Bret. With one T." At which point I laughed out loud.

i would expect most streetwise students would probably lock out snooping staff via the privacy settings

??

Says you. I've had mine for nearly 10 years after graduation by now.

The sad truth is that I think it would make me feel lonely, and out of it! And I have a perfectly good LIVEJOURNAL for that arf arf ARF.

xpost

Yes. He seemed to know everyone and was walking around making sure people were having a good time.

I never signed up for an alumni e-mail account, and now I'm unsure of how to do so, but the only people I'd know on Facebook are young punks like deej, anyway.

a bit like MEETING THEM, HOLDING CONVERSATIONS, THAT KIND OF SHIT.

It's far classier than myspace because you can't change your page much. No background music. No videos. This is good.

Very recently though, there has been a very noticeable trend (in Berkeley at least...can't speak for the nation) to make your profile super-private and only visable to friends. People are either getting wary, or snobby, I'm not sure which.

1. My brother is a grad student and when he TAs a class, he always checks out his students' Facebook profiles and is sometimes surprised at what they're willing to divulge. (Then he stores this information in an Excel spreadsheet ... oh wait.)

2. I have a cousin who just finished his freshman year at Northern Illinois University. He tells me that as soon as he received his school e-mail address last summer, he immediately signed up on Facebook and found that dozens of other incoming students had done so as well. In fact, the ability to notate your dorm and room number within your profile meant that he knew nearly everyone in his hall before they ever actually met face to face.

3. Haha, my dad moderated a panel about Facebook last month.

There's an annoying girl at my job who has some serious growing up to do. One of her many horrifying common behaviors is playing "house" at the job and designating different coworkers as different members of her family. For a while she had a huge crush on me, and thus I became the husband. Whenever new people were hired, she'd excitedly hug me and exclaim in her nasal voice, "This is Derek, he's my husband! He's the best husband in the world!" Then she'd switch to a more serious tone to warn the girls that they'd better not flirt with me. Terrifying. Of course, she wanted to marry me on Facebook. After weeks of continually reminding me that I have yet to click "yes" that we are indeed married, I finally gave in and did it. After a while, trying to finally give her the message that I'm not interested, I switched to being married with another one of our coworkers, a girl I'm good friends with but my "wife" hated. When she saw that I'd switched the status, she had a real break down. Female co-workers told me about her heart break over the incident.

In conclusion, jesus christ, be glad you're not on Facebook.

Certain features that make it really useful for college students. You can list your classes in your profile and the page can create a list for you of people in your classes. You can easily find people in your class to ask them questions about upcoming tests, what the homework was, etc. Also, unlike MySpace, there's more local community centered stuff since the only people on Facebook I interact with are fellow UNCC students and I don't see anyone from Harvard. For example there's groups with local interest like "I LOVE " rather than just "I LOVE LIMP BIZKIT." Like other people mentioned, there's the announcing/organizing events too.

MORE IMPORTANT THAN TEXTING?!?!?!?!??!

That is pretty harsh.

Au contraire. I think a lot of people use it for exactly that reason. That's the impression I've gotten, anyway.

hi, do you know the internet?

It's not that social networking replaces your social life, it just... mediates it. Instead of personally inviting people to parties via word of mouth/telephone/email or just throwing it up on a flyer, you're sending it to a reasonably targeted, much larger group than you'd be comfortable calling. The downside is that pretty soon you're doing the majority of communication through there, any "event" that can vary from a party or concert to two people sitting around drunk turns into some "scandalous" photo diary, and there's the online backchannel that sucks everyone in.

I've been around people where there's this obnoxious feedback loop where they're pretty much trying to come up with new people to befriend and more pictures/content to put up on things like myspace, and half of what they talk about is myspace. Urgh.

Still, why is word of mouth/telephone/email an inherently better form of communication? I agree that it's a "larger group than you'd be comfortable calling" but I think that's very likely a good thing. For example, tonight I'm going to play soccer with a casual friend from a class. He invited me and the rest of the group with a facebook message. It would have been awkward for an acquaintance to call/email, and probably would have never happened.

I had a friend whose girlfriend changed her facebook relationship status to "single" in order to make him jealous, or something.

putting yr actual girlfriend/boyfriend as 'wife' or 'husband' on facebook is kind of crepey though, surely it should refer only to actual married spouses or to best friends.

which reminds me ... enrique, are you still gonna be in glasgow this weekend?

haha this is true.

I know a fair amount of Johnston & Wales -- a local culinary school -- on there.

i don't know anyone obsessed with it, though. thank heavens.

http://badge.facebook.com/badge/36910239.80.948704031.png

...

Yesterday
Brian is single. 12:19pm

Molly Daniel is hating facebook right about now. 9:59am

Molly Daniel joined the group I hate the new facebook. 9:39am

Molly Daniel joined the group Students against Facebook's "Mini-Feed". 4:52am

Danielle Cohen joined the group WE HATE THE NEW FACEBOOK FACELIFT. 3:39am

Ann Marie Coddington added new photos. 3:19am

Lauren "Philly" Grimsley wrote a new note. 2:59am
THIS IS WACK!!!
THIS FACEBOOK SHIT IS WACK...CUZ ACCORDING TO FACEBOOK I KNOW WHAT U DID ONE MINUTE AGO, 3 HOURS AGO ANDDD THIS WEEKEND!!!
Continue reading...

It spread this summer beyond Trinity in Ireland. And resulted in much "Oh no! PLebs!" type comments.
Bebo is more popular here for the reason that you can find your old school friends and facebook wasn't available to anyone with anything less than an (a)tcd.ie address. Radio stations, music things etc have bebo pages rather than MySpace, which seemed a bit odd to me. I committed beboicide a while back. Considering commiting Facebookicide.

That said it's been handy for me, esp now that people I know are scattered to the winds, to toronto and cambridge and london and shit. There's no option for saying you're a drop out though..

The new changes are horrible. I mean it was a bit weird before that you could check who's profile had changed, go see and not notice or realise what had changed. But this is odd. It should be possible to disable it.

Next time someone slates Mansun remember these words.

I'll grow out of Mansun at my own speed, tyvm.

And I couldn't give a rat crap roulade when you grow up!

hehe

Hi John,

Now you can join Facebook! You tried to register last April, before we allowed everyone to sign up.

To register for Facebook using any email address, go to:

http://register.facebook.com

Thanks,
The Facebook Team

So now the concept of waitlisting students has spread to their social networking sites. Beautiful.

I couldn't find an old friend of mine last week searching his name on myspace when it hit me, "______ has always been a bit too conceited and way too social to not have any social e-profile networking thingamajigger...but he wouldn't be on myspace anyway...too popular...doesn't show elite status or isn't some club...if only there was some other sites just like myspace but seemed to be more about distancing yourself from the unwashed masFACEBOOK DOT COM!"

I checked out the site and sure enough I found him. Just goes to show how far mean generalizations about people will get you in life.

join the IRM appreciation group.

I am Facebook now.

Oh hey, Nuvvieworld! sweetness.

Also, I'm not appreciating the amount of jocks I went to school with accosting me on facebook.

"let's catch up for a beer etc". No.

I was sucked in to join by a friend just so I could look at her O/S pics. What I find odd is random strangers adding as a friend. wtf is that all about?

Still haven't joined (pats self on back)!

I joined about two weeks ago, and am quite addicted at the moment, but I can feel the novelty starting to wear off already (I'm running out of friends to add for one thing).

Joined for 5 mins last week. Account already deleted. No interest in interacting with people from the past sort of thing. I've stayed in touch with those I wanted to.

I'll probably rejoin another boring Friday!

quite funny thing by charlie brooker in G2 today.

I knew he'd regret mentioning it in last week's column.

I've stayed in touch with those I wanted to.

I've heard this argument a lot, but I'm a bit rubbish at staying in touch, so it's actually proved useful for me in catching up with people. Also, I've found some people I used to quite like who I'd forgotten about.

I feel that I made the effort. There are times when I feel guilty but what can you do? I can't keep up contact with everyone I liked, can I. Also I use things like that to find out about people, I don't want people finding out anything about me! [/paranoia]

charlie brooker's just an unfrozen caveman columnist. you can't expect him to master these whiz-bang doodads. i mean, what are they like??

So, i'm getting a bit tired of the dudes i know on facebook
Is it 1) somewhat crepey to be approaching random ilxors to be "friends" on this fucking thing?

or 2)muygoodbutstillslightlycrepeytimes?

if these ilxors know who you are, i.e., you are regularly interacting with people on ilx, then not so crepey, i don't know, maybe depends on time known too

what is crepey is poking, to me. why not just send a msg saying hi? i don't understand it.

The "hilarious" innuendo that goes with poking is upsetting.

Just found an ex of mine I haven't seen for five years. DO I SEND HER A MESSAGE? God, the anguish.

I have never poked anyone nor been poked

chap you should friend her and detail that "We hooked up and it was torturously awkward"

I also hate the hilairrriousness of dudes status updates. This one wank i know currently has his as: 'is starting to get over fielding calls from models who want to get dirty on his arse.'.

it was previously: 'is wondering why he is doing multi-coloured turds'.

NOT FUNNY, my friend.

Bizarro. So far I'm just mostly using it as a good myspace analog.

so now it's just Evil Ned on myspace?

Nah, just cloning.

I think I'll do it tomorrow. A 2.30AM message would have 'crazy internet stalker from the past' written all over it.

if you figured out cloning, ned, the internet would have to be renamed the interned

Give me time.

(Unrelated rofflyness -- from a recent Momus comment on his LJ re:ILX :

I'm not going to launch into a diatribe about how it's all polls now, or how you have to be Ned Raggett to fit in, or how idle watercooler-style chatter has banished the intelligent discourse.

Hooray! Oh wait.)

My sister's ex just added me as a friend. Now I have 2 friends. I am so popular.

i cant find any friends on this thing!

did they all tell you their last name was smith?

You can find me, surely!

found you!

Yay!

Stepping out, will be back later, etc.

so does one 'poke back'? like, out of curiousity? (pos know this person? hm, memory not so helpful)

Don't poke, write a "please to explain poke" message to it.

hm

i'm a fan of less effort on my part
hence poking back
holy crap i am totally procrastinating

I think the poke-back is a little too lols and chummy, keeping distance with a "how do I know you?" is how I would approach this grave dilemma.

i am lols and chummy these days

sort of

This photo is further proof that that guy I was whining about before is a twat. On the left. (sorry abt the whining, btw)
http://i80.photobucket.com/albums/j171/mdanielwalter/1.jpg

they had better be listening to Christopher Cross

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/thumb/9/95/Yachtrockep1.jpg/250px-Yachtrockep1.jpg

Is he a twat because he has a six pack or because he is on a fuck-off big boat posing on the Harbour?

Ok, first he's a twat because every single thing he says on facebook is forged in the fiery pit of lolzheeelarity.
second the vizor.
third at school he was a scrawny tiny little coxswain now he's sporting a sweeet kind of flabby twopack or something and obviously here to show it off and party.

that's all I got.

maybe i'm the twat.

..It's his facebook profile photo btw.

did this guy beat you up or something?

Ha, no, he's about a foot shorter than me.
We used to be good m8s, but drifted apart etc etc.

Coxswain. Private school I presume.

yeah m8. JEEPS m8

What's with the matching shorts?

I think if you poke someone back, then they can see your profile for a bit, and you can see theirs. I think.

Is anyone using Virb? It's like a prettier version of myspace but with flickr/video integration. I'm not convinced it offers enough that is new, and there are only about ten people on it, but it's definitely nicer to use. (http://www.virb.com/missekawasaki/)

everyone add me!! im c0ry sk1ar.

i thought your name was chaki

still do not understand pokes
will add chaki

I don't get the pokes, either. The one person I've poked is my husband. (Oh, how that SOUNDS.) But neither of us get it.

Chaki, I will add you! (You may reject me at will.)

ok, i'm now here now. hunt for j3remy s41m0n.

Ha ha just joined ILX/M group. Sadly this means that people will now find where I spend my day and get all my jokes! Maybe I should unsubscribe just to be safe!

I don't get the pokes, either. The one person I've poked is my husband.

Yes, me and my boyfriend poke each other several times a day. Wait, what?

http://www.facebook.com/group.php?gid=2223261784

Dear god how I hate humanity sometimes...

Does "I hooked up with..." imply a sexual relationship or not?

it's only used ironically

not from this angle

Yes, me and my boyfriend poke each other several times a day.

hahaha. You kids and your boundless energy.

finally joined facebook this afternoon and I am frankly amazed how many ppl contacted me in a v short period of time, compared with myspace where I find i get friended in dribs and drabs (and mainly by bands these days, tho I don't mind that).

Still won't do it.

I mean, my boss is on Facebook. 'Nuff said.

What is the ILX0r group? How do I join it?

Does anyone else find this more incomprehensible than MySpace/Friendster. I have no idea what to do.

"Hooked up with" does imply snogged/boffed, but most people use it as a joke.

I have managed to avoid being friended by ex-school people by using my name that only came into being a couple of years after I left. Ha!

"hooked up with" has the virtue of being open to interpretation, and a casual, short-lived sexual relationship is definitely one of those interpretations

I used my internet psuedonym which confused old college friends. But I really don't want to use my real name. I don't know why, this seems more adult and almost every one else is.

Facebook is easy for me, but I think it's harder for new people to get a handle on now that they've got all the new features and "applications" (ugh)

people don't use pseudonyms on Facebook, if you want to be less searchable just use your last initial instead of your last name, or something like that. Personal FB pages don't show up on Google, and only FB members who are in your network/are your friends can see your page.

I finally relented a week or 2 ago and signed up after being hassled by several friends to join as "everyone we know is on it". But actually pretty much only the friends who were hassling me are on it! I joined the ILM group. No-one from my past who I either wanted to get in touch with or wanted to avoid has turned up yet.

I might try the last inital. I wanted to use MsMisery as nearly everybody knows me as that. Real-life friends I've known in the past few years know me as Samantha as well but not people I was in school with 12 years ago. :(

What is the ILx group called? I could only find my college.

"I Love Music"

yes, where's the ILX group?

I'm not ILM.

i am the small ILM

i finally got on there on friday, so bored was i at work. i was tempted to tick 'we dated' when Dan friended me - i'm mad me.

don't really get this 'poking' thing.

ah.....

don't really get this 'poking' thing.

guess it's a bit like winking on okcupid....

I don't think I'd mind being friended by ex school ppl now. Time is a great healer! I would imagine that if I was tho it would follow the same pattern as with Friends Reunited, a couple of emails back an forth to ascertain what we were doing these days and that would be that.

does anyone bother w/ friends reunited anymore? (i'm guessing not)

I am your friend, Mark!!

I look at Friends Reunited (very) occasionally when they send me an email saying someone has updated their details - which usually is a lie!

There is no-one from my year at school on Facebook, but loads from the years either side. Curious.

Not for a long, long time (xpost x 2).

I've just had an email from someone I've never heard of in my life wanting to add me as a "friend" to Facebook. The cheek of it. It's a disgrace.

Myspace is for Proles. Let us over throw the bourgeois Facebook, all power to the soviets, etc.

That might have been me, Marcello :)

No it wasn't a CJ.

the whole point of facebook is a bunch of randoms calling each other friends.

Registered for Facebook last Friday, immediately re-established contact with people I hadn't seen for 5-6 years. And that's without just randomly typing names of old friends in the search box (which I obviously intend to do next). So it's done its job for old geezers like me, I suppose.

the take-up in the last, like, month of two seems to be huge, based on total lack of statistics.

FR was oddly therapeutic for me since it first came up just after Laura died, so it was quite reassuring when people I hadn't seen for 20+ years got in touch and I had to tell them what had happened and they were all very nice and understanding about it though I haven't really kept in touch with any of them since because, well if you know "Do You Remember Walter?" by the Kinks that sums it up pretty acutely.

If my emailer "CW" was in fact CJ then fair do's and thanks, but being added as a "friend" by people I don't know is pretty creepy, like people coming up to me in the street wanting to hug me or something (not that that ever happens) - you just want to run as far away from it/them as possible.

it's probably an ilxor, MC. this is kind of what you sign up for with facebook!!

fair do's, Marcello Carlin

like people coming up to me in the street wanting to hug me or something (not that that ever happens)

I'm reasonably happy with it, but I see it more as a random person coming up to me and starting a conversation in a pub, which happens quite a lot! So i guess a person's reaction to being friended by someone who is not in fact their friend is largely governed by which real life situation they think it is most like....

the whole point of facebook is a bunch of randoms calling each other friends.

i think for most people i know, it's limited to actual friends. for me at the very least people i've met a few times and like (as opposed to "people i see every weekend"). i've had a few friend requests which i didn't recognise but it was usually because i'd forgotten them rather than didn't know them in the first place.

it does seem to have exploded in the last few months rather and is the first of this type of site that i could actually see being a part of everyday life for normal people in the same way that, i dunno, a mobile phone is - the events thing is really such a handy way of keeping upt-o-date w/ your diary.

pseudonyms on facebook = lame.

what is dud is PRs friending you and then HASSLING YOU VIA THE MEDIUM OF FACEBOOK

I don't mind people getting in touch with me via the blog or ILx or wherever - after all, that's how I met my fiancee! - but the whole MySpace/Facebook "friend" business doesn't really gel; for me the randomness of "friending" in that context is just one step up from URGENT RESPONSE REQUIRED TO NIGERIAN GOVERNMENT CRISIS-type spam.

pseudonyms on facebook = lame.

tell it to little terry lennox

i don't mean "random" in a bad way entirely -- but i wouldn't call someone i'd met a few times a friend (or not 'actual friend'), necessarily. i guess it depends. i only just put my real email addy up, not really sure if i want in.

fear of random weirdos friending you seems to take up about 50% of the chat around facebook, compared to about 1% of actual stuff which happens on facebook. and if you don't like it just deny them!

tell it to little terry lennox

i have done, repeatedly

i don't mean "random" in a bad way entirely -- but i wouldn't call someone i'd met a few times a friend (or not 'actual friend')

well no, neither would i, but facebook friend != actual friend. it's a useful way to keep in contact w/ people who'd otherwise be relegated to "i remember a nice conversation with this person at this party that time" and, you know, make more actual friends

i gave in to the peer pressure and registered a few weeks ago. Haven't met any random weirdos or creeps from the past yet.

myspace>>>>facebook

facebook is basically oldschooltie shit. though, the explosion on facebook has suddenly made myspace look dated and even empty. myspace feels a tiny bit like makeoutclub or lipstickandcigarettes now

facebook is better designed than clunky myspace, if only because it's newer, and despite lacking the 'pizazz' of the latter.

it's the third time i've gone through the process of 'adding friends' after friendster and then these two. progress eh.

with Friends Re-united I could pretty much tell before looking which people in my year at school were going to be on there and which ones would never be on there.

696 otm. but myspace looked horrible and was shitty to use.

it's the third time i've gone through the process of 'adding friends' after friendster and then these two. progress eh.

not including flickr or last.fm

i could live with bad design but the worst thing about myspace was music exploding on you when you didn't want it.

oh yeah, bands embedding their videos in windows media somewhere down the page which then played automatically at the same time you're trying to listen to the tracks in the audio player. stupid.

i.e. bad design

yeah i really meant bad design as in horizontally-scrolling pages, unreadable fonts, shitty backgrounds etc but that works too.

^ agree with all the above. i ended up kind of liking the bad design (again kind of reminded me of makeoutclub) though, all the same, it feels like it should have bad design

i already have a myspazz and i was avoiding facebook, but i got conned into joining by the lure of being able to see photos of a certain friend. but that's the whole problem with it - you can't go perving at anyone's profile unless you're their friend. and apart from my best friend who lives in the states, and an old and vague acquaintance in the uk, my only other facebook buddies are my freakin' workmates (which is pretty lame).

i like myspace. mostly because of a conversation i had on another book forum about a crazy white supremacist who stalked me there, which then led to becoming myspazz friends with someone from that forum, which then led to bestfriendship and possible true love. and another good friend of mine is someone i met on myspazz, and he lives in my city.

and the myspazz crazies who send creepy messages make for good stories at the pub. i had one guy ask me to be his mistress, because he wanted to perform errands and bring gifts to a superior woman.

i dunno what makeoutclub is.

making out is great though.

in terms of how i use it, myspace is barely any different from facebook, except a) more people on facebook b) facebook LOOKS BETTER and also WORKS most of the time - to defend myspazz on these grounds is ridiculous c) less as in no lame bands/whores trying to friend you, i don't understand what ways myspazz could possibly be considered superior except through force of habit

facebook reminds me of school and it has my workmates on it

i don't really have massive issues with either of those

i like that you can make myspace pages look all fucked up and shit with pictures.

when i'm bored at work i jazz up my 'spazz page... i mean, it's hardly brain surgery, it's just a bit of a piss. one of the best things about it is how many great artists i've discovered. because my profile is quite arts-centred, and i have a ton of pictures up, it seems to attract a lot of people with similar tastes, which then leads to discovering new artists who have profiles. i avoiding putting any personal pics, or pics of myself, up for a long time, but then they got the new photo album set-up, which allows you to block anyone but friends from viewing them.

myspace and facebook seem to have very different motives - fb is more for connecting with people you actually know (or used to know) while the 'spazz is more for meeting new people.

i already have a myspazz and i was avoiding facebook, but i got conned into joining by the lure of being able to see photos of a certain friend. but that's the whole problem with it - you can't go perving at anyone's profile unless you're their friend.

Facebook is much better than MySpace for all of the design reasons just mentioned, but unless you're a student, there are still way more people on MySpace. When I joined a year ago, I had to add my 23-year-old gf's roommates just to look like I knew people. This does seem to be slowly changing, though.

Fuck'em both. Maybe FB because I'm a university dropout so i can't get in. Myspace is just. Urrgh (and not only designwise, also the way you have to interact).

I'm a bit worried that FB is going to become more and more like myspace -- but even if it does at least it (probably) won't have the disgusting level of customization that leads people to overlay translucent graphics and paste in lots of oversized pictures/text and render their profile completely unreadable

I think anyone can join FB, nath. Not just uni kids. It's my first day there .... would you like to be my friend??

pseudonyms on facebook = lame.

Lex, I don't like the ideas of strangers or near-strangers knowing too many personal details about me. With a real name, a school, etc. it could be too easy to track me down IRL. The world's a strange place these days.

myspace feels a tiny bit like makeoutclub or lipstickandcigarettes now

You mean it feels like Friendster did when MySpace exploded?

CJ, sorry, I am not that interested in FB. Just doesn't seem to appeal to me. Another social circle. Nah. I liked Friendster, that was okay,but the rest can go eat dick shit.

Dick shit? STRIKE THROUGH, you moron.

dick shit sounds unbelievably foul

OMG the synchronicity: someone just invited me on FB. I'll probably give in. I'm a total wimp. ;-)

Yes, Sam, I know. I tried to avoid that fuck or suck thread as well but to no avail. :-)

Lex, I don't like the ideas of strangers or near-strangers knowing too many personal details about me. With a real name, a school, etc. it could be too easy to track me down IRL. The world's a strange place these days.

i understand this but you don't have to put your school in, i haven't (though i have joined my school's group), and if you're rigorous with the privacy settings all that strangers can actually see is your name and your picture (and there are lots of profile pictures which don't give any clues as to what the person actually looks like...)

What have I done. I already regret it.

At this point the school association is the only benefit I see! I mean I can associate with ILX0Rs here and on Flickr so it's not like I need another place to link up with you weirdos. ;)

You mean it feels like Friendster did when MySpace exploded?

not really, friendsters design was kind of sober, myspace more like moc etc

I meant more in terms of use. I remember it took MySpace a while to get going but when it did Friendster was abandoned. Obv. that's not happened to MySpace yet but it could be coming.

Myspace does lose what remains of its appeal pretty fast once you've got a few friends on Fcbk.

I'm mostly just glad to not be bombarded with terrible bands and Cool Videos uploaded by mongs.

you can block all requests from bands etc. and you can also disable the automatic music player.

I have done this before but for someone reason this often doesn't stick.

Whatever, I've finally ditched MySpace. It all became too junior high. lame.

I have about twice as many Facebook friends than Myspace friends in a tiny portion of the time, there must be something about it that appeals to people who aren't anywhere else on the Internet. Perhaps its the privacy thing.

I still get a bit weirded out at having so many FB friends on one page on the internet, when previously I was used to having them separated into carefully delineated groups for different periods of my life.

Why did Myspace beat out Friendster? Was there really that much difference between the two? Was Myspace just a copycat that struck it lucky or is there some bigger reason?

MySpace had more features than Friendster. Blogging, etc.

Ya - I've noticed some odd worlds colliding within my friends on FB. may or may not be a good thing.

xpost

Matt has loads of hot girls on his facebook friends list.

the last few times i've logged into myspazz i've got the "sorry! unexpected error!" message - how can you love a site which fundamentally doesn't work, when a functional alternative which does exactly the same thing is available?

all my friends in one place = convenient. though it is apparently weird to want all your friends to be friends with all your other friends.

MySpace didn't really blow up until bands started using it but in the six months before that I think it did attract people BECAUSE it was messier/noisier than Friendster which was somewhat sober as gareth says and this is also true of facebook - the pendulum swings back.

though it is apparently weird to want all your friends to be friends with all your other friends.

idealistic yo

Lots of bosses are now turning up on Facebook, which has me checking out the tightness of that limited profile thing

i always make sure i have a cool boss who wouldn't take umbrage with anything i write on there.

i said this already but im reposting it--we had a lot of these myspace vs. facebook discussions upthread:

i dont like the idea of facebook getting all democratized and ugly like myspace (and having a ton of "entities" like companies/bands have their own profiles instead of just "groups").

keep it clean and efficient and fascist--and well-designed--and there wont be a problem.

yeah all the new companies and applications are a bit much. Tho I like having my last.fm on FB.

xpost democratized -> idiots like me (uni dropouts) being accepted?

CAn bands do pages now?

I hope not. I don't want to be a part of another MySpace.

i hope not

(they can do groups)

xp

it's not so much the democratization/opening of FB to non-students as the corporate presence, for me anyway. I mean, over time FB would be open to more non-students than students anyway, as more and more original 'book members graduate

i marvel at the stupidity of anyone who puts anything on their facebook/myspazz page which they wouldn't want their boss to see!

(or pity them if their boss takes serious umbrage to pictures of their employees drunk in their spare time)

I just took a look around to see if I could find any other people who I knew from my major. Besides feeling pangs everytime I saw someone listing their class as '10 or '11 (mine is '96) I was amazed at how many listed their dorm and ROOM NUMBER as their residence. I could see this without even being their friend. Madness.

Besides feeling pangs everytime I saw someone listing their class as '10 or '11

hi dere

yeah but ms. misery, most schools allow you to find your classmates' room numbers via their own website. facebook isn't really providing any information that isn't already out there and accessible, and it actual has much better privacy controls than most schoolwide student directories.

I have to say I like Facebook for putting me back in touch with a Russian friend now teaching English in China (strange but true).

xxxxpost by democratization i mostly meant the insane "customizability" of myspace pages which allowed 12 year old idiots the ability to make their pages entirely unreadble

the applications don't bother me because at least facebook requires them to be designed within the parameters of the site's general aesthetic.

i dont know why everyone uses ilike instead of last.fm tho

you can block all requests from bands etc. and you can also disable the automatic music player.

Yeah, it just annoyed me that it was so bound up with the idea of shilling shit bands

<i>myspace and facebook seem to have very different motives - fb is more for connecting with people you actually know (or used to know) while the 'spazz is more for meeting new people</i>

'xactly. i've never even considered myspace, and doubt i ever will. iresisted facebook for some time there, despite getting invites from increasingly unlikely mates ... i finally gave in and have already found myself in contact with a dude i was friends with when i was six or seven, and haven't seen in the best part of 20 years. so it's been worth it for that alone. plus various other people from my past who i like, and am pleased to be able to keep in some form of simple contact with.

stet's right about the limited-profile thing, but hey. it's really simple: if you value your privacy that much, don't, umm, post shit about yourself on the internet. at all.

FB is very much the bourgeois ex-student social network of choice, innit? it's totally exploded among my meeja chumz in glasgow and london in the last fortnight. maybe it'll be a passing fad; i dunno. right now i just like the fact that it's a really good way of keeping up with a shitload of old friends.

(fuck: IT dude just came round to tell me the server was back up and stood staring at a collapsed browser window [1] with "can i say you're my girlfriend on facebook?" plastered across it. christ knows what he thinks i'm up to.)

[1] mac OS 9, since you ask :(

xxxxxpost

Our directory doesn't appear to do so. Also you have to know someone's name to look them up in a directory and you don't see a photo. Kids be dumb.

man... it took a lot of time and effort to make my page entirely unreadable. :(

you have to know someone's name to look them up on facebook, too...

I actually stay in touch with people more regularly through MySpace, which unlike most of creation I really have no problem with (though a lot of that has to do with Greasemonkey making things very handy for me). That said others prefer Facebook more, it's whatever works.

xpost

That's what I'm saying . . .I just did a search for my major and hundreds of people came up. I could see their name, photo, networks or whatever and residence. Most people just had something like "Austin, TX" but some had "Blanton Rm 406". Dumb. I didn't know them or their names. Yes I'm part of the same University network but that's not hard to join.

or their friends' name

2xpost

at my college, a "facebook" was like a telephone directory except with PHOTOS of everybody, and the whole point was to find the deets of someone you'd only seen at a party, or somebody cute in your english lit class that you were too shy to approach

i see no indication that Facebook can be used the same way, in fact it seems like it functions in the opposite way: the only people whose details are accessible are people you already know! bo-ring

FB is very much the bourgeois ex-student social network of choice, innit? it's totally exploded among my meeja chumz in glasgow and london in the last fortnight. maybe it'll be a passing fad; i dunno. right now i just like the fact that it's a really good way of keeping up with a shitload of old friends.

it's the way it acts as a social diary which makes it potentially more than just a fad/way to pass time at work - it's really handy for planning anything from meals out with four or five people, to big parties, to even holidays - all the details on one handy page rather than a mass email which gets lost in the inbox. and this is why people are joining up, too! they don't want to be out of the loop.

fb also put me back in touch with someone from The Past, who i'd had no other way of contacting, which is really brilliant and more than myspazz ever did for me.

I am up to four or five 'I've added you as a friend on Facebook...' mails a week now.

i dunno, i think youre mostly being paranoid ms. misery. all this shit is out there for the dedicated stalker even in facebook's absence.

Tho I like having my last.fm on FB.

yes! but that's about the only app I currently like.

I think MySpace put me in touch with too many people from the past. Once all those weirdos find me on FB I'll probably abandon it too.

FWIW when I was in college we kept in touch by carving messages on rocks and leaving them at the creek where everyone washed their tunics.

xxpost, perhaps I am being a bit paranoid but there is something to say about young people being too trusting of the this technology.

i have pseudonyms because i don't wanna be found! srsly facebook sounds like my worst nightmare.

i dont think its a question of trusting the technology so much as trusting yr classmates/friends. fwiw id say its mostly a minority of people who actually have their addresses/dorm rooms in those fields (or who keep those fields updated)

yeah I'm kind of all "if I'd wanted to stay in touch with you, I would have just stayed in touch, thxbye."

that said, I've had a couple of repressed memories track me down on that god-forsaken myspace. hahahawesome... :\

xpost

You are probably right. But for cute blonde Jenna over in Carothers dorm it could be all I'm in ur room sniffin ur panties and explioting ur fresh young credit.

yeah I'm kind of all "if I'd wanted to stay in touch with you, I would have just stayed in touch, thxbye."

a lot of the people from eg school whose company i've most enjoyed recently are the people i didn't really get along with at school, while a lot of my actual friends from then who i've conscientiously kept in touch with, i now find quite awkward to communicate with. gosh what a torturous sentence that was. but anyway, gist of it = people change, and the people whose company is pleasurable and useful now aren't nec those you expect, and nor should they be

meh... i'll take the risk.

I'm really lousy at keeping in touch with people, so something like Facebook might turn out to be useful for someone like me. As I said upthread though, seems like not many people I know are on it anyway.

i see no indication that Facebook can be used the same way, in fact it seems like it functions in the opposite way: the only people whose details are accessible are people you already know! bo-ring

Not true, you can look up the details of anyone at your university who chooses to make those details public to the entire university (most people do)

Like I just said to my colleague, my social network works perfectly well on email

xpost but the point is that where with the paper facebook you found the picture to get the name, with online facebook you need a name to find the picture

You really can't beat rocks.

yeah I'm kind of all "if I'd wanted to stay in touch with you, I would have just stayed in touch, thxbye."

i totally agree. i can think of only one person who i've lost contact with that i would like to be in touch with again.

the kind of myspazz profile you have tends to dictate the kind of people you meet. i don't actually encounter that many weirdos; i only accept friend reqs from people who make the effort to write me an interesting msg; and i periodically cull my friend list of people i haven't stayed in contact with. and srsly, i've met some absolutely awesome people thru 'spaz that i wouldn't have otherwise encountered.

that's true, although there are WAYS xxpost

I just prefer facebook because myspace is ugly and broken a lot.

yeah, i refuse to join myspace on design principle

Facebook could be pretty awesome with the api and whatnot

xpost
If you mean by design otherwise perfectly sane adults putting hideously loud backgrounds and sparkly Zwinkys on their pages, then yes I agree. MySpace is like the worse of GeoCities and LiveJournal combined.

ok, i wasn't going to do this but i remembered i put my 'spaz url on my ilx profile-thingy anyway... for all you haters:
http://myspace.com/red_rubies79
go and have a laugh if you want. feel free to take the piss.

[although i've just added some art slideshows and they seem to be slow to download, but that could just be my computer]

If you mean by design otherwise perfectly sane adults putting hideously loud backgrounds and sparkly Zwinkys on their pages, then yes I agree

hehe :D

There's all sort of folks i've met irl that i don't have the time to keep in touch with. FB is awesome for that.
and also for letting me know which ex's literally want nothing to do with me!

big time xposts

it's the way it acts as a social diary which makes it potentially more than just a fad/way to pass time at work - it's really handy for planning anything from meals out with four or five people, to big parties, to even holidays - all the details on one handy page rather than a mass email which gets lost in the inbox. and this is why people are joining up, too! they don't want to be out of the loop.

This actually annoys me, if people are organising things I prefer it if they do it by email.

a lot of the people from eg school whose company i've most enjoyed recently are the people i didn't really get along with at school, while a lot of my actual friends from then who i've conscientiously kept in touch with, i now find quite awkward to communicate with

absolutely OTM. i have no problem with people from my "past" seeking me out. if it turns out we like each other in 2007, great; if not ... what, are we gonna start giving each other fucking chinese burns and bogwashes?

(actually ... that's one they should put in superpoke.)

fwiw: with one exception, all the ilx0rs i've added as FB friends are ppl i know in real life. does this make me rude and standoffish? it's not meant to. i'm still a little unsure about the etiquette of "friending" people you don't really know.

(whereas on last.fm, for instance, it's never been a consideration.)

that's one they should put in superpoke.

Fuck supering a poke. (The whole poke thing is kinda weird -- just say hi, gawdammit!)

I refuse to join MySpace on MURDOCH EVIL principles.

Yeah, I'm a little weird about adding ILXors, too. I'll say yes to those who ask me, but I don't add others unless I've met them IRL. I was the same way on Friendster and MySpace.

The past two months on facebook for me

- friends with 19 yr old uni students on my course
- old friends from school appear (ie people in their late 20s)
- people I know from my gap years appear (people in their late 20s/early 30s)
- people I used to work with pop along (people either about to hit their 30s or in them)
- bosses appear (old)

(And now - the cooler people I know, people like my trendy early 20s cousin, are defecting from myspace)

From where I'm, er, poking it seems fb has morphed very rapidly into a more grown-up/varied space just within the last few weeks.

A head-mashing collision of worlds, but has been a handy way for me to update my address book and say hi to people I was crap at keeping up with when I was much busier than I am now and not in the mood for chat.

^ 8080. I'm just not quite used to granularity of it all yet. It's not about posting shit you don't want your boss to see, it's the unease of a party when both your mates and your boss are there. You have different social registers for these people.

Precisely. I did feel very out of place on there when it was just me and uni mates writing 'wot time is the oral exam lol I forgot!!!!!" Was more at ease when friends my age appeared but, yes, the boss thing feels slightly gatecrashy - not cos they're mostly older but because there's obv a professional relationship there and now I'm supposed to call them my 'friend' and vice versa. Although some of the bosses I've seen making 'friends' with colleagues are probably more likely to write inappropriate stuff than I am.

http://ec1.images-amazon.com/images/I/519PAH2SC0L._SS500_.jpg

I thought that said "pubics"

None of my bosses are on Facebook. I'll take this as a good thing.

you guys know that you can set specific parameters for privacy on a person-by-person basis? so your boss, for example, doesn't have you see that your interests include "pedophilia" or "arson"?

why would you want to censor that

max works at a daycare with no fire exits.

no fire exits makes it harder for arsonists to get in, see

your interests include "pedophilia" or "arson"?

But that would be the only thing we have in common! Seriously my bosses are far too old to care about shit like Facebook.

people with myspace accounts should be culled.
-- Roughage Crew (Enrique), Tuesday, June 27, 2006 6:37 PM (1 year ago) Bookmark Link

damn i should chillax

Most everyone at work jumped on the FB bandwagon, so they could be "hip like the students." They strong-armed me into signing up. I had to explain what a poke was to my boss, and then show her how to send a personal message.

It was depressing.

I just signed up for this today, totally different world to myspace. It's like a more grown-up bebo really, and I never warmed to bebo. It'll take some time to get used to.

How Facebook could crush MySpace, Yahoo!, and Google (from Slate.com).

zoe, i'm intrigued as to which "bosses" you mean ;)

it's the unease of a party when both your mates and your boss are there. You have different social registers for these people

er. i don't, really. there are subtleties and niceties, but it's all one big swirling vortex round grimly's social sphere.

The typical Facebooker spends hours each day sending messages, posting "notes" or blog entries, and uploading photos, along with trolling for freshmen girls who love the Decemberists.

journalists be hyperbolizin

some people on there have like 20-30 comments a day, most of which are the same message

"wow sounds like you had a great time!!! how was steve?? work is really busy at the moment! im off to Madrid in August!!! How cool is that????!!"

feels like being in a town centre pub in somewhere like Hatfield

"im really excited about the wedding!! photos look amazing!! have you seen any of the old gang around at all?!!! mikey is still just the same!!"

WELCOME TO THE REVOLUTION

6968080

which incidentally was my telephone number in 1985

Ed how was last night!!! sorry i couldnt make it round!! I had to work late!! crazy busy! what are you doing this weekend??? Is it ok if i bring round the macbook so you can do that cloning thing!! We'll have to meet up for drinks soon!! I'm busy all week and then its Dezzers stag on friday which should be AMAZING!!! How about sat??

I deleted my MySpace Account. I feel much cleaner now.

but 696 you must know these people if you can read their messages... surely you don't mind it that much.

he's looking for insider info on the housing crash

"I just paid £95,000 for a 2 bedroom buy to let in Croydon! WICKED!! I'm in the $$$$s now!"

fwiw: with one exception, all the ilx0rspeople I've added as FB friends are ppl i know in real life. does this make me rude and standoffish? it's not meant to.

I would be exactly the same! I don't need to keep up with strangers and their doings...

i don't need a public internet site to keep up with people i properly know though...

Sat could be good but I might be on for some beers up north (North of Luton!!!!! Scary!!!!!!! LOL!!!!!!!), go clubbin' with the Lads. Buzz me friday see if there underwater or not.

<i>i don't need a public internet site to keep up with people i properly know though...</i>

ach, i don't *need* one. but it's kinda fun. also: experiments with private internet sites (no, rly) haven't been resoundingly successful.

i'm not saying facebook is revolutionary -- it's palpably not. i think its current popularity will wane quickly. but fuck it. it's put me in touch with a couple of old friends, and it suits my purposes well.

i'd probably be fine with it but it sort of makes complicated situations public and more complicated....

r u on last.fm?

lol

"Facebook users who like to control who gets to see your account details, take note: political views, religious back ground and other sensitive details may be wide open to prying eyes even though you've configured your profile so its viewable only to designated friends.

That's because the user setting that allows only designated friends to view a user's profile has no effect on whether the contents of that profile can be searched by the Facebook community at large. Users who want to block their profiles from being searched must go through an additional step."

more - http://paranoia.dubfire.net/2007/06/go-fish-is-facebook-violating-european.html

it wasn't a joke :(

i keep adding people from my degree course at university who i've not seen since then. probably silly but nice to see old faces again at least.

i can't find the i love music group on FB. :-(

http://www.facebook.com/group.php?gid=2200160366

I keep meaning to join it, but I don't want people I know to think I love music :/

I may have already exaggerated my love of Ivan Campo in that regard

I am the small Pogatetz

i keep adding people from my degree course at university who i've not seen since then. probably silly but nice to see old faces again at least.

-- blueski, Wednesday, June 27, 2007 6:02 PM (11 minutes ago) Bookmark Link

i'm halfway to quitting it because this just leads to headaches and/or aforementioned randoms. i'm being a bit prissy about it i guess.

I've started getting former school mates bringing the "AIN'T SIN YOU FOR AGES" to what was previously a contended quip-trading circle-jerk between a bunch of people I already spend a lot of time with. It's all turning from gold into shit.

contented, I mean

it's only as complicated as you want to make it.

Maybe I don't really know what I want, Steve

in these crazy times i can't say i blame you. but thanks for friending me.

two mutual friends~!

Somebody start an ILx group. I feel like a liar in the ILM one.

Ok, should do that. I don't listen to enough musickness these days.

ILE on FB.

nope

he's right.

Yeah I would do it but I really have no clue how. I can barely join groups.

:-( I made it a closed group. So if you change your mind, I will reject you anyway. Actually if you (no matter who) prefers it is an open group, I'll switch.

waht

*note to self* insert appropriate emoticons showing you are joking.

I couldn't find it. . .

(Open group: can we deal with open relationships?)

Urgh. http://www.facebook.com/group.php?gid=2382779449

Would that work?

anyone else with a myspace who has resisted facebook feel like they may have backed the wrong horse...

I have too much Facebook crossover with work to join an ILE group I think...
When worlds collide!

they probably have a red face right now

there seem to be some odd features on facebook which I can envisage as being ILE threads, like the foodfight option. AFAIK, there has never been an ILE thread called "this is the thread where we have a food fight" but it's being realised by ilxors on facebook as I type (and w/ pics of the food handily provided so you don't have to faff around searching for 'em on google images).

an ex cow-orker has invited me to become a zombie and go round chomping ppl, bizarrely....

how wonderful life is on a perennial rag week

some weird dude just friended me

Hooray, have joined ILE!

I am a zombie! I have no minions as yet though.

I joined ILX group :)

I thought the Louis "Jigger" Jagger Appreciation Society was ILE's unofficial group

I think it was but is now full of LJ's IRL friends or something.

haha

I thought it was other way round!

I've just sent a request to join the ILE group!

One of us (collectively).

Me too! I'm still not sure of the point of this, but CJ hit me with a haggis, which seems suitably bizarre enough to count as fun.

Ooh I have ILX friend now!

I am going to sulk until you start having fun on ILX where you all belong.

Henry joined the group Flipmode Squad. 4:03pm lol

If I had my druthers, I would say I'd hooked up with all of friends, just for shits and giggles, but my coworkers, on FB, might think that's weird.

i was gonna do that, don't really know why i didn't.

i have sent in mah request.

it can be vaguely creepy if it's not obviously a joke. :/

Yeah, exactly. My coworkers, who are "ready to embrace social networking" because their big librarian conference told them to do so, probably wouldn't be hip to the fact that's it's an obvious joke.

that's the main reason why i didn't

xpost

But, the major bonus of having coworkers on FB, is that I can be wasting excessive amounts of time on it, but if someone walks by and sees my screen, they'll think, "oh! it's work-related! she's networking like all the kids do!"

(NB: there is a major age gap between me and my officemates)

This morning my big boss came up while I was friending Nath. haha! whatever.

He knows I'm cool. ;-)

Yeah your big question mark screams productive networking. As did the Victoria Secret's ad that was up next to it.

:-) I uploaded a pic now!

ach, what the hell. i'll chuck my request in too ;)

kenan, you are now in my myspazzy hall of fame. i sent you an initiation message.

hall of fame shame

er. i don't, really. there are subtleties and niceties, but it's all one big swirling vortex round grimly's social sphere.
Aye, and you're probably the only person I know like this, tbh. Still, there are subjects you'll only talk about with certain people, surely? But there's no way to reflect that with FB.

Flickr does this quite well with its per-picture friends/family/public thing, whereas with FB it's either on or off - your friend can see your wall or they can't. You can't have everyone but your boss see "killing my boss" as a status, for a stupid example.

if a subject is only for the ears/eyes of certain people, why would you even consider putting it on facebook?

gareth, myspazz comments are hardly any less inane!

http://www.myglitterz.com/comments/weekend/6-22_02.gif

stet: yes, you're dead on -- i'd like a degree more subtlety with my FB privacy. unless i'm getting it wrong, all i can do is set up one limited profile and then say, right, these people can see that.

which isn't ideal: what i'd like is to be able to set up, say, three different limited profiles for three different people. it is a bit all-or-nothing right now.

like i say, though: ultimately, it's a public forum. so yes, there are going to be some things that even i wouldn't say, no matter what privacy options i might be offered. i mean, you and me, we know to our cost how damaging it can be when the wrong information gets into the wrong hands, perhaps because you someone decides, in a move of unprecedented madness, to paste a private e-mail onto the pasteboard next to page two of a newsp ... ah, never mind :) :) :)

GF what you can do is make sure that when you're searched as an individual or they send an email they can't see your status or any other info, not even your friends. Also please to give more info re. pasteboard screw up!

I've got mine seriously limited but as TH pointed out, I'll still be in stats searches etc. I'm liking this at the moment, it's a lot better than Myspace anyway.

Apparently it's bad form to delete messages on your own wall but I think I might make an exception in the case of a uni mate who's scrawled YES TO GET THE NEW RADIOHEAD STUFF JUST GO TO BIT TORR....etc etc.

Yes pls more info on pasteboard.

yes, i can imagine radiohead's lawyers have been poised over your profile for weeks now, just waiting to ... umm ... sorry, why would you be remotely worried?

:)

unless radiohead's lawyers have never heard of bittorrent. or the new album.

(as for the pasteboard thing: no fucking WAY.)

Radiohead's lawyers live in my broom cupboard.

Actually I was more bothered about the wife sending me public gifts. He's new, please excuse.

Haha, yes I did think re: pasteboard actually I think I don't need to know...

I am pushing for a graffiti application to be added to the new production system, so I can draw cocks on the pasteboard of grimly's pages.

why has facebook suddenly exploded in popularity in the last 2 weeks?

it's all down to us.

Facebook was always insanely popular with people of my age group. Even non-uni students are more likely than not to have an account; I've been able to track down and reunite with virtually all my primary school friends at the mere click of a button. There's been a recent explosion of non-university, non-school-leaver accounts, so now pretty much all demographics are covered (except, for some reason, 'parents'), but since early 2005, it's been pretty much compulsory for students.

Yeah exactly...I know it's been popular always.

But in the last two weeks this thread has been revived here and I've got about 6 friend requests on it. And then read on a blog "So I finally signed up for Facebook".

WHY?

HIVEMIND. I dunno, I signed up 2 weeks ago because some friends were bugging me to (as I said upthread), but it seems I am part of some huge general trend.

Waitaminute. Radiohead leaked?

"studio mixes"

I only know this because of someone's fb status...

It's like Day of the Triffids - we'll all go blind because of this.

I "poked" the one old schoolfriend who I wish I'd kept in touch with and he responded by friending me. Which led to me writing a summary of the last 17 years of my life in an email to him at 1:30 this morning. I finished by 1:32, obv.

hehe....it is kinda creepy the way it has everyone's full name.

I got friended by someone I met for about 2 minutes in a bar with friends a few weeks ago and the people she was with are all in the main picture with full names.

Ah right. Cheers Zoe.

You get a couple of web and press articles on Facebook just because MySpace talk getting boring. Then other papers and magazines see this and jump on bandwagon. All in turn convincing more people out there to join it which in turn prompts more media coverage. I think this is the only reason for the explosion - we've seen it work this way with other things before.

southall hasn't posted his social networking meets ID cards scare stories on here has he? he should. they're very scary.

hehe....it is kinda creepy the way it has everyone's full name.

I know. Makes me wonder I made ILE group closed cause of 90 procent of the *applicants* I didn't know their name!

Which led to me writing a summary of the last 17 years of my life in an email to him at 1:30 this morning. I finished by 1:32, obv

hahahah: i said exactly the same thing to the dude from school, ie: "how am i going to condense 15 years into one e-mail? er ... worryingly easily, i fear."

the place is filling up with my cousins now. it's quite worrying.

guys i got a facebook invite from Darramouss

I was thinking about this while bored the other day - if ILX was deleted tomorrow, how many people I really like here would I stick in touch with? Probably not many, outside London, and maybe not all of them.

This is partly why the "if I really liked them I would have stayed in touch with them in the first place" line doesn't quite hold for me. It happens time and time again that, when the context for friendships vanishes, many of the friendships themselves don't migrate or adapt. Maybe the really close ones but that's about it. Especially when you drunkenly lose your phone and all your numbers once a year like I do.

Where Facebook has been so successful is creating a context for a lot of old/dormant/current friendships to migrate to, and possibly stick there. Far more than MySpace/Friendsreunited/anything else.

Especially when you drunkenly lose your phone and all your numbers once a year like I do

once a month more like and that's generous. did you lose it at glasto?

I agree. I lost touch with a some people just from having lived in 7 cities and moved house many times within an 8-year period. I've been surprised at the lack of awkwardness when re-acquainting myself with a couple of people. There's been no excuses made for why we lost touch. I think a lot of my awkward feeling of 'oh no not them' when I see some old friends pop up on fb is nothing to do with me not liking the blast-from-the-past thing but my own guilt about failing to even say hi for years and years.

xpost

its glastonbury not glasto, chiz chiz more champers what?

abbreviations are not the sole privilege of the leisure classes

my Uni friend Giles said so.

Pompey fans to thread.

Actually, no, Pompey fans fuck off.

abbreviations are fine

just not 'glasto'

what's wrong with champagne?! i mean champers dahling

It is not real ale and doesn't come with with free flat cap and ferret.

all of those are really bad things though

Idea of drinking champagne >>>>>>>>>>>>>>>> actually drinking champagne. Most overrated boozestuff ever except possibly cider.

Not in the tipsy topsy world of 696.

people rate cider?

girls in flat caps=quality

- real ale makes you fat and doesn't taste nice, give me pimm's any day
- flat caps are for old men, i do not like old men
- ferrets are ugly and smell and bite

Where do you stand on ferrets, 696?

I rate cider over champagne.

i would never stand on a ferret, ed

id kick a horse in the face though, if you paid me £20

Is that John Willie's 'os? The one what won the the Grand National?

c'mon gareth, say "glastuhr"

that is written glastuhr' you middle class oik.

should i tell everyone which STDs i have in my profile?

Why, are you looking to collect a full set?

let them be pleasantly surprised

I really don't see how Facebook is drastically better than Friendster, except in terms of being able to anticipate users' needs and integrate new features (once MySpace came along, Friendster was always trying to play catch-up when it came to things like blogs and "top friends"). But as far as its ability to preserve contact with friends, what's the difference? I still don't have as many friends on Facebook (or even MySpace) as I did on Friendster at its peak. Whereas Friendster was so novel at the time, I get the feeling that a lot of people are cautious about joining yet another social-networking site at this point.

Dude, the number of people (in the UK, at least), who have ever heard of Friendster, let alone been registered with it, is minuscule next to newly expolded Facebook. I don't think there's any "not another one" issue with take-up among the general population.

zoe otm re: guilt upthread.

I was thinking about this while bored the other day - if ILX was deleted tomorrow, how many people I really like here would I stick in touch with?

::cries::

Yeah I'm not 100% comfortable with the full name stuff yet. And I love champagne for the record. Drunk with a straw. Ferrets do smell

WITH A STRAW!!! Get thee hence woman.

Also you are all wrong about champagne, it can be the most perfect drink in the world. Cider just kills brain cells and makes a piece of string an acceptable belt.

Those !!! were meant to be ??? by the way.

The full name stuff is a bit weird for people like me who are used to pseudonyms, yeah. I still don't really like the idea of people being able to find me online for some reason. Also it means apart from a couple of people on ILX who I've met IRL no-one will have any idea who I am in the ILE group :)

u_u would you believe that I don't know your full name. Feel free to webmail it to me and I will friend you. If you don't do this the feeling of rejection will drive me to drink*

*Not really. That would be the alcoholism...

Also it means apart from a couple of people on ILX who I've met IRL no-one will have any idea who I am in the ILE group :)

Exactly. I was looking at the group members yesterday and aside from a few that were obvious, I had no idea who half the people in there were!

haha enbb when you facebooked me it took me a week before i realized who you were! (of course i automatically agreed to the friendship b/c "mutual friends: ned raggett)

Yeah, ok - this is funny. So one day I was looking at my fb friends and was like wait, when did I friend up these three random people (one of whom was you) from ILX? So I went to look at my history and realized that I'd done it when drunk and didn't remember doing so. Whoops!

I am the Pokemon kitties.

hahaha well im nonetheless honored to be yr friend

In that case, I've just added you MM. Although, I would never had thought that was you because I had no idea that was your real name!

Max, likewise. :-)

I put my internet name up there at first but then my college friends were "wtf?"

kv_nol I just poked you :)

saucy

Oooo sir!

Perverts, all of you.

You just jealous! I'll poke you now!

LOL "you have poked Ned Raggett"

i'm such an ILX Star Chaser!

Ah, you rapscallion, you wastrel!

I ignored a friend's 'zombie bite'. I mean come on

haha enbb when you facebooked me it took me a week before i realized who you were!

^^ same!

I think it was the WDYLL thread that tipped me off actually!

Yeah, CS - you were also friended the same drunken evening. Really, I should just stay away from the internets after imbibing.

ps - I was browsing the ILM group when said friending occurred.

Dude, the number of people (in the UK, at least), who have ever heard of Friendster, let alone been registered with it, is minuscule next to newly expolded Facebook. I don't think there's any "not another one" issue with take-up among the general population.

Is it just a matter of Facebook being bigger then? I don't doubt that it is, and probably has been for some time given that it's practically compulsory among students (pretty much every single person I know under the age of 24 is on it), but I guess I don't see people my age (28) jumping on-board with the same fervor as they did with the other major social-networking sites. Perhaps this will change. I just haven't noticed it yet.

Ah, you rapscallion, you wastrel!

-- Ned Raggett, Thursday, 28 June 2007 15:53 (Thursday, 28 June 2007 15:53)

Chillax, I left the money on the nightstand under the alarm clock!

Blueski, wise choice!

Yeah, CS - you were also friended the same drunken evening

I like how these sites have turned "friend" into a verb, completely separate from "befriend."

Erica did not friend me, though. :(

Facebook's just come along at the right time. Friendster and MySpace are pre-Web Too Pointy buzz.

re 'friended' see also 'texted'

I just accepted random request from some girl who likes to sew (what made me befriend her). On facebook, she can't post "thx for the add" .gifs with sparkly my little ponies, can she?

i should say, "one can't post..."

Jaymc, your friends just don't want to add you. It's cool.

"Oh shit! Here comes Jaymc."
"Oh wow, stop talking about your Facebooks. He'll only want in like FRiendster and Myspace. Remember how cool they were before he went in? Exactly!"
"HAI GUYS"
"Hey Jaymc."
"DO YOU LIKE FACEBOOK?"
"No I am too cynical and not ready to jump in again."
"OH."

(This is all meant in jest. Not very funny jest, I'll admit. Sorry Jaymc)

one cannot.

xpost

re 'friended' see also 'texted'

http://www.cartoonbank.com/assets/1/124082_m.gif

Jaymc, consider yourself "be"friended.

Also, I was talking to a friend about FB recently and she was surprised I'd joined. She said she couldn't handle another networking site so I guess that is the attitude here, at least for some people. Whomever was talking about the UK thing was right though. Only one of my UK friends has a myspace whereas I've found loads of them on FB.

To be honest, I think it just boils down to Facebook being along at the right time and looking quite sober and having real names and real friends on it. For most people I know my age (28), Myspace etc still had that last vestige of "weird geeky internet stuff", while Facebook is just what people do, like texting or something.

Myspace etc still had that last vestige of "weird geeky internet stuff"

Are you serious? For me the perception seems to be more "lame, kid stuff".

Yeah. I remember mentioning Friendster to a group of teenage relatives who had just become enamored of MySpace and they looked at me like, "OK, whatever, old man."

AMATEUR SOCIOLOGY TIME:
Brother 1 is at university. He and all of his friends are on Facebook. Brother 2 is at vocational sixth form college and will not be going to university. He and all of his friends are on Myspace.

myspace = lame kid stuff, as well as creepy old pervert stuff

all bases covered

does this mean media comentators are going to start saying "facebook generation" instead of "myspace generation". i'm not sure we'll cope.

I find this MySpace/Facebook class divide strange because most people I know are on both. But then most people I know/hang out with went to college so duh. Seems a one way thing (if you didn't go to college perhaps you're more likely to only use MySpace but if you did go you'll jump on all and any friending-based bandwagon site in the pursuit of cool and socio-cultural synchronicity.

it's not strange considering FB, until very very very recently, was only open to college students (and high school students by invite only)

i know i just find it strange that a lot of university-going Facebook users wouldn't also have been on MySpace.

i've never even been tempted to get a myspace account! although maybe i'm an anomaly; my younger brother spends almost all his time on it and doesn't have a facebook account. he isn't a student yet, though, so it probably figures.

p.s. befriend me, if you like! you'll never have to request LJ in a dress pix ever again!

when Myspazz went mental in 2005 in my experience it was kind of "alternative" people or at least people into music who were on it in the main, whereas when I first became aware of facebook later that year it seemed to be a used by people with less sub-cultural baggage.

you'll never have to request LJ in a dress pix ever again!

nor 'for the first time ever' i trust

when I first became aware of facebook later that year it seemed to be a used by people with less sub-cultural baggage.

a massive point in facebook's favour, this

MySpace phase 1: US collegers
MySpace phase 2: shitty bands
MySpace phase 3: me and everyone i know #1
MySpace phase 4: decent bands
MySpace phase 5: me getting a new account cos old one was neglected and got culled
MySpace phase 6: our parents, employment agencies, newborn babies, lolcats, facebook-induced backlasheroo

I generally agree with Steve M. that most people who are just now joining Facebook are probably already on MySpace. But I think that there are definitely some people who joined Facebook when they were in college and it was still students-only but who resisted MySpace because it was too much of a random free-for-all, lacked privacy, and wasn't as directly connected to a campus community. My girlfriend's one of them.

I generally agree with Steve M. that most people who are just now joining Facebook are probably already on MySpace

Nah, not among my (non-internet) friends, anyway. None of them have ever been on any social networking site before.

The straights have taken over the asylum.

i guess there are a lot of people i know who do/would do Facebook but never MySpace, thinking about it more. Of my friends I'd say 50% are on both and the other 50 would be Facebook only. I don't know/have any chav MySpace-only friends.

The straights have taken over the asylum.

got it in one, jim

For the record I would like to note that I was using MySpace long before the bands came on. Regular Friendster users made the transition pretty early and although some bands made profiles, the "music" and "band" parts of MySpace came along after it was already pretty well along. (I was also long out of college).

how is this not a good thing?

xp

Scotty, what's left?
Just the batteries. I can give you inpulse power in a couple minutes

...We don't HAVE a couple minutes

myspace perhaps a lot more suited to people in the process of finding / developing their identity.

scotty...SCOTTY!

Yeah, weird, I generally think of MySpace as the site for people who have never been on a social-networking site before and probably aren't interested in joining another one. Facebook would only be appealing if they enrolled in college/grad school.

scotty...SCOTTY!

JOHNNY!

ilxors be talking about weird internet types....

Flipmode Squad group just isn't the same without you quitney :(

Girls Aloud

i took bands off because i thought my honest list of favourite artists was needlessly long - and the ones i took out were some pretty 'obvious' ones - no other reason.

i might add Althea & Donna tho - man I have all their SONG

never understand why peoples band lists are so long

I am trying to hide my nerd life from new girl I met. How long will it take?