Sunday, December 21

There is no such thing as...


computers on ice
Originally uploaded by Amy Art
"too cold to blog."

And besides, at least in this part of the Great Midwest, it's gonna be 51 degrees on Friday.

I've been sucked into the Facebook vortex, clearly another landing pad on the way to full identity disclosure. Facebook is, I have to admit, an amazing app, and what gets me about Facebook is how it uses the term "friends" so loosely. I hardly know some of my "friends" and they hardly know me.

I was about to say "I'm not much of a networker" but then I thought how my actual real friends would react to that statement. They'd laugh their heads off.

And anyone who is a knitter or a small blogger (or especially both) is automatically a friend. There is instant connectivity with those who share a common passion.

Anyone have any Facebook stories or advice to share?

12 comments:

  1. Most of my 'friends' on facebook are actually people I know, with a few rare exceptions (you included, as it's how I came to this post, and I can see now it'll be a good tool to visit your blog more regularly, as I have often meant to...time, time!).

    I'm not a phone person, and almost everyone I know, including my family, is spread out all over the globe, so I've found facebook to be an excellent way to keep in touch, even in little ways--those are usually the best ways. :)

    It's great for networking too. I've been able to use it to organize various political actions on campus successfully in relatively short periods of time, so it's certainly been helpful there. Yeah, as bad a rap facebook gets for being cheesy, it's actually very useful.

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  2. Well, the friend of your friend is your friend, apparently. Some sort of mushroom paradigm there.

    ;>)

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  3. Facebook is a more convenient way to stay in touch with those bloggers I've come to love. It's comforting to be able to read about others' feelings and to share thoughts, too.

    There are times when facebook is not consistent in its operation. The administrators seem to be tweaking the application. It is, however, a wonderful tool!

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  4. From the early days of Classmates.com and LinkedIn, I started using these things. People used to mock me for my LinkedIn use.

    I must admit that I never use classmates any longer and LinkedIn, just a bit.

    Then came blogging and Facebook. I have continued to refer to myself as a social networking whore. *FranIam hangs head in shame* Well, it's not the worst crime I could commit, is it?

    A large number of my FB friends are from blogging. I feel as if I am a part of two groups of bloggers and they do overlap a bit. It blows my mind when I see that so-and-so and I have 30 friends in common, or something like that.

    Many of my other FB friends are from my former workplace, which I left at the end of 2007. It has been a great way to stay connected.

    Lastly I have met up with all kinds of folks I had not seen or heard from in ages.

    Then just yesterday I "friended" a blogger that I don't really know but who is a friend of a blogging friend (phew) that I met IRL. What caused me to "friend" her was that she is friends with someone I went to college with. The Six Degrees-ishness was too much for me and I had to do it.

    I have struggled with the open identity but I keep plugging along.

    And now I am much more likely to reply to a FB message than I am a regular email. Not sure what that says and if it is good.

    So that is my FB story and as is often the case with me... a long winded one!

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  5. Anonymous1:22 PM

    I am now using facebook, too. I started it mostly to keep in touch with our daughter who is never home and how will be leaving to go to college next year.

    But who am I really staying in touch with? My blogger friends! Oh, well, I guess we can't get enough of each other and in this sometimes lonely IRL world, that's not a bad thing.

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  6. Anonymous1:32 PM

    I have kept my Facebook friends list deeply constrained, because I find I get overwhelmed with news I cannot keep up with or don't want to keep up with. I don't want to be rude by not responding to someone's cookie baking news (or in my case, chili making news) so dealing with the superficiality coming and going is a challenge.
    I don't actually hide my identity but I amuse myself with another name.

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  7. I damn near never use Facebook. I think I opened an account there so I could enter an NCAA b'ball bracket pool or something. Took me 3 days to figure out that your friend request was from YOU. I damn near threw it into my spam trash can. I don't know... I've just looked at FaceBook and Myspace as high tech meat markets, I guess. Places where people like my stepdaughter can troll for losers and fuck buddies. An unjustified view, I'm sure, but.... no excuse.

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  8. Anonymous3:46 PM

    I just started using Facebook and then I got a MySpace page for my music and now a Bead Space page for my art and jewelry.

    On facebook, I usually know the people in real life although I have hooked up with other bloggers, like you and that's a blast.

    I kind of like social networking sites because it's something to do when I just feel like sitting around and chilling out . Of course I still read the blogs.
    -Liz

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  9. The FaceBook application I think you would most benefit from is the NOTES app, wherein you are allowed to import your blog in much the same way as an RSS feed, but with its own tab on your profile and all the formatting you put with it here on Blogger.

    Unfortunately, I too have a lot of friends on Facebook due to the Zynga game applications, but they seem to be decent folks.

    BTW- I've been reading your Blog for a while now, and I think you're ding a fine job.

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  10. Hiya Blue Gal. I opened a Facebook, and then shut it off when my brother posted a link to Rush Limbaugh. I didn't know you knit! Ravelry is a great place to look at projects and find patterns. Great posts on C&L!

    -snuffdoggydog

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  11. I'm 52 years old, so none of my old friends or classmates are on Facebook and I haven't had the experience of reconnecting with high school friends. Most of my Facebook friends are at most two degrees removed from actual friends--co-workers of professional colleagues, people who listen to podcasts I also listen to, or local Buffalo folks.

    What's interesting to me is how Facebook and Twitter interact. I feed my Tweets into my Facebook status, so I have to conversations going on: some people responding to my comments in Twitter, others on Facebook.

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  12. Anonymous8:22 AM

    I Facebook and MySpace, but by gosh, I refuse to get all wrapped up in that Twitter I hear all the cool kids talking about.

    I got the Myspace and Facebook so I could see the kids' pictures and keep up with that why had going on when they went off to college.

    Now I just use facebook to let people know what mood I am in and what I am doing...

    by the minute.

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