I’ve spoken of my hesitance to get involved with the whole Facebook/MySpace thing. However, it seems that I’m slipping deeper and deeper into the Social Networking abyss. First there was blogging, then Flickr. Those were the gateway drugs leading to Twitter, Virb, and Facebook. Now I think I’ve taken the ultimate plunge. I helped Laura get set up on Facebook this evening.
I had to explain the concept of “friends” to her, and that folks found you or you find them by listing the schools you attended and the year you graduated. So Laura added her education background and work at Furman.
When it came to to list relationship, things got a bit weird. She selected “married”, then tried to add my name as her spouse, but couldn’t. What we discovered was that the whole courtship/proposal/marriage thing is encapsulated in the process of setting up a relationship. She and I had to be friends first. She made a request to me, then I had to affirm our friendship. While I was logged in as myself, I went ahead and changed my relationship status to add Laura as my spouse. Apparently there was another approval process. What showed up on my Facebook status was the following:
Laura Wright approved your relationship request.
And here I thought you needed to go down on one knee with a ring in hand. Then the following appeared:
Laura Wright is now married.
No muss, no fuss, no relatives, no white dress, no minister, just done – proposal and marriage in the world of Web 2.0. I could see this happening for real with couples who aren’t already married. Although, I guess it’s a good safeguard. I’m not sure I would want some person, even if I have made them a friend, adding me as a spouse.
Laura found a couple of her students and added them as friends, then started searching for former classmates. She decided to let them add her. She didn’t want to add any of her Furman collegues, though. The way she put it, “I see these people every day. I don’t need to be friends with them on Facebook.” I think that might change when they start “friending” her.
[tags]Facebook, Social Networking[/tags]
There’s a lot about that site that I don’t get. It seems to me that they miss out on having something that is specifically a blog function (I don’t think “the wall” is specifically that). The interface seems somewhat scattered to me. But, lots of folks there.