I finally succumbed to Facebook

I hadn't intended to sign up with Facebook. I'm not sure whether anyone does. But Bill Brandon, the editor of Learning Solutions eMagazine for the eLearning Guild invited me to become his friend and, being a well brought-up boy, of course I said yes. Within one hour I had uploaded my entire email contact list, invited everyone I knew to be my friend and I was well and truly sucked in. It was interesting to discover that two of my step children were already members and to find out who their friends were (parents can learn so much this way). Jilly, my wife's daughter, had a look through my first attempt at a profile and pointed out several extremely uncool references (she does work for a web design company in London and therefore qualifies as a reasonable guide of cool) which I quickly corrected. I was astonished how much I revealed about myself in my profile, but then what the hell.

I had no idea what to expect from Facebook and, a couple of weeks later, my expectations remain very fuzzy. Obviously I have a professional interest in social networking and am particularly keen to find out how well it can work both inside and outsie the firewall and in a learning context. In this sense I would like Facebook to demonstrate more value than other online communities that I have participated in. More selfishly, I'd like to experience the pleasure of interacting with as wide a range as possible of my online and face-to-face colleagues. Blogging has achieved a great deal in helping me to make connections, particularly internationally, but many people I know are not bloggers and probably never will be. I'd like Facebook to keep me in contact with people I don't see that often, and to introduce me to others whose interests reside in the extreme of the long tail, i.e. the handful of others who support Brighton and Hove Albion and still like the Incredible String Band (yes, really).

I am obviously not alone in my aspirations. Brent Schenkler points to the latest data on social networking sites, which shows how Facebook has grown by 270% since June 2006, putting it in a clear second place behind MySpace, which also grew but only(!) by 72%. But, popularity has its downside as Stephen Downes writes in Facebook Bankruptcy:

"We are seeing the pushback from people who joined Facebook without anticipating what happens when all their friends can send stuff to them all the time. The problem isn't Facebook so much as all those apps that prompt users to 'send this to ten of your friends'."

Meanwhile Tom Haskins reckons that:

"Pervasive connectivity will over-extend Web 2.0 and cause it to lose devotees. We are taking social networking to an extreme where it will seem like too much of good thing. Getting bombarded by updates from friends and requests to be friends -- will induce burnout.

I must admit I can't really relate to Stephen's or Tom's arguments. I don't have too many friends. In fact I don't think I could ever have too many. I don't even care if some of my so-called friends aren't really friends and just want to bolster up their friend count. I'm not fussy. Keep updating your status (that's the feature I really like). Send me all your invitations and requests to participate. I might enjoy them. And if I don't, I'll know better next time and simply ignore them.

I understand how Facebook messaging could easily become like email and that I'll be inundated with communications. But as far as I know, there's no penalty for not responding, and anyway I'm getting better and better (and presumably so is everyone) at skim reading message headers. It takes me only a few seconds to spot the one genuinely useful item in a list of 100 or more. In the end I'm in the 'glass half full' category. I'd rather than too many emails than none at all, too many friends than be all alone. If I change my mind after a few more months of Facebook, I'll let you know.