Facebooking

For the less socially extroverted and networking averse, who shun happy hours, don't carry business cards with them to the grocery store and just don't have time, connecting and reconnecting with people can be difficult. For someone with writerly ambitions, it's even worse. Read, write or gab: guess which one loses out?

And then came the online social networking sites. While some might use them to socialize, for the rest of us, it's a great way of finding people who you have lost touch with. I have joined Facebook and found a lot of people that I know. There's some fun stuff on there and like-minded groups to join.

Yes, it was originally for the college (Harvard) set, but aren't most techy things? It's now expanded to more people (and so has Myspace and others). Even people older than Trackball are signing on in droves. The best part is you can stay within your circle or expand out. No awkward hems and haws or anything.

Who knows what the long term effect of this will be? Equality in networking? Face2face connections resulting from, say a common affinity for Firefly? Maybe an even playing field for this networking-fueled world we live in.

So come one, come all, and join the Trackball's circle of friends.

2 comments:

Ron Toland said...

But what about the closed-off-data problem?

What does Facebook offer that I can't get through Blogger and a Flickr account? I just dug into Blogger, and I'm getting out of .Mac; I'm wary about jumping into another closed pond.

Trackball of Truth said...

I understand the reluctance because modern digital life is a series of closed off potholes. A Mac fan should understand that. :)

Don't forget that some of us are not capable of building a Facebook for ourselves from scratch. And the preponderance of acquaintances and friends makes it a puddle to jump into.