Facebook 101

First...How cool was it when Bill Clinton and those journalists stepped off that plane? So cool! I will admit, right here and now, I cried. I have been following the path of these poor women since March when the North Koreans seized them. When Laura Ling said they were told they were being taken to a meeting, were lead into a room where they saw Bill Clinton standing there..."they were shocked, but we knew instantly in our hearts that the nightmare was finally over." Wow.

I just couldn't start my post without saying...Bravo President Clinton...Bravo!
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Moving on...You all need to explain Facebook to me. There, I said it, secret's out...I don't get Facebook...and you're all there. All of you!
Let me start at the beginning (I'll be quick) I messed around with MySpace, figured out how to design my page (looks nice, right?) then "poof" folks asked me to design their MySpace pages...Yay business!
Then, I figured out Twitter...designed my page (looks nice, right?) then "poof" folks asked me to design their Twitter pages...Yay business!
So...ages ago, I set up a Facebook account and quickly found I couldn't edit the look of my page. Well boo hiss on that:P I tossed Facebook in the junk pile and never looked at it again...only to find that folks I recognized were sending friend requests.
Yesterday, I was bopping around the blogosphere, when I clicked through the "networked blog" widget on someones site. I checked to see if my blog was listed (it wasn't) so I went through the steps to list it. I needed a Facebook account to do this.
Holy, to my surprise ALL of you are there, Batman!!!
WTF? All I do is Twitter...what is the difference between Twitter and Facebook? Are you all doing both? Seriously, Facebook 101, class in session. I'm listening...enlighten me on Facebook...please...I need help...
Seriously...poke me, nudge me, post on the wall...what the heck am I doin' here?

23 comments

  1. I cried when I saw the news coverage of the those girls lesshen they stepped off the plane...touched my heart. Way to go Bill Clinton.

    I actually have a Facebook addiction. I am seriously needing to go back to work because it is a banned site at work. I play games, post updates, take mindless quizzes, look at photos of tagged friends, and much more. I actually have to pry myself away from the computer. Sign back up and see for yourself or maybe not. :)

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  2. what happened to my typing ablilities? I meant stepping off the plane...dah!!

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  3. Me too -- I was sobbing! Way to go Clinton and Gore and the rest of the team responsible for their safe return!!

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  4. Oh yeah, will you be my facebook friend so I can poke you! Hehe!

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  5. Facebook!
    Gotta love/hate with it, but you're right, everybodies on it.

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  6. Think of Facebook as kind of meeting in the hall between classes. Or better yet, passing notes. People post a status (not so unlike twitter) and then it's kind of a conversation starter if you want it to be. I've got friends on mine that I haven't seen since jr. high, but it's kinda nice to peek into their lives and see what they're doing. I don't know why! lol. It's kinda like being at a party where you can eavesdrop on conversations and join if you want to.

    btw, I don't get the whole twitter thing.

    Friend me! ;)

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  7. First of all, Yes! Well done, Pres. Clinton! Well done!

    As for Facebook... haha! The very day I came home from the hospital, my mom started pestering me to sign her up for an account. Then she spent the next three days freaking out about it. (Blog post to come)

    As I told her, you can be as engaged in the technology as YOU want to be. I'm addicted to both Twitter and FB.

    Twitter is how I keep up with my bloggy friends. FB is how I keep up with my real-life(mostly non-blogger) friends... oh, and other people who never talked to me in HS, but for some reason are now clamoring to be my buddy :-P

    For me it's fun to poke around and see what people are up to these days- see their cute kids' photos, congratulate them on their new house/baby/job/dog, keep tabs on my little sisters...

    Truth be told, out of my 200+ "friends", there are approximately FIVE people who I really and truly care about hearing from everyday.

    Everyone else, especially the ones who update what they had for lunch every afternoon, I could toss without a care.

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  8. Facebook has the capability of Twitter (via status update), plus more. Facebook is also only as public as you let it be, based on who you 'friend' and how you filter your friends.

    Here are some things you can do on FB:
    - share photos, like that one of you dancing on the table in the bar. Oh, wait, that was me.
    - share links, with comments (over 140 char) like the My Vagina is 8 miles wide video - awesome stuff!
    - realtime chat. Which is annoying like the kid that won't stop tapping you on the shoulder. STOP. IT. Thankfully you can turn this off.
    - send personal messages via your inbox (like DM)
    - post personal messages on someone's wall that other people can read if they are nosing around & you don't necessarily need to be truthful if what you wanted to do in the first place was get their attention. What?!
    - stalking your family/friends is very easy & requires no phone call, but you get the satisfaction of saying things like "so how did the Dr extricate the stick from Johnny's nose?" as if you HAVE actually been keeping in touch.
    - you can play games both goofy & intellectualish
    - you can use apps like Goodreads or NetworkedBlogs and TONS others that I hear people are addicted to in droves. Not me tho. Nope.
    - FB is fully mobile. If you have a cell you can do just about everything thru the phone. If you have an iPhone or Blackberry you can do even more. Watch the drunk photo posting tho. Just sayin'.

    I hear your frustration on lack of personalization. For me it has become sort of a hybrid 'home page' that sits up on my screen. I have added my horoscope (hey, it's important to ME) & specific info I want to see. I filter my friends & have gotten it to work like a good mop or whatever.

    I'd gladly fill you in if you need more than this. Hope I helped. Or dulled the pain is some way.
    :-)

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  9. The absolute only things I do with Facebook are:

    1. Play games when I am in need of a good brain rotting.

    2. Chat with relatives who don't really need to learn that twitter is far superior.

    3. Stalk high school classmates so I can laugh at how they are still in North Dakota, despite having cried about how they wouldn't stay there no matter how much someone paid them.

    I have essentially blocked all applications there because, really, if another person throws Britney Spears at me, I might freak out.

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  10. 1- I'm on Facebook but I don't actually sign on very often.

    2- I don't Twitter because I don't think anyone cares what I'm doing at any random moment.

    3- The only reason I'm on Facebook is to see my friends' pics of their kids n stuff. They all live so far away. Plus it is nice to reconnect with old friends from high school.

    Other than that, I know nothing. ;)

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  11. I like facebook, keeps me in touch with far away friends. Honestly it has gotten easier as I used to let my teenage daughter clean up all the notifications that built up. I have the hang of it now and sometimes you can almost chat in real time on someones status...although there is a chat option on facebook.

    Myspace is not the in thing these days according to my teens and I needed them to design it for me anyway.

    In other words the best tutor for you is a ... teen..

    L xx

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  12. I've had my head in the sand all day so I hadn't heard or seen anything about the release of those reporters. But YAY!

    As you know, I am on Facebook. It's pretty much the same as Twitter in that you post thoughts or news. The big difference, for me anyways, is that I KNOW everyone I am "friends" with on FB, whereas most of my Twitter followers, with the exception of a few, are internet friends or complete strangers. So the things I post on each are different. I'm a little more censored on FB. You can set it up so that whenever you post on Twitter, it posts on FB, too. It can overwhelming.

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  13. I use Facebook more for real life friends (though some of my bloggie friends are on there too) It's just a nice way to keep in touch with them now that we all live apart, have kids, husbands, etc and don't have time to pick up the phone and have a real conversation.

    Also, the HUGE BONUS of Facebook is that the look of the page isn't changeable. Your MySpace page looks great- but most of them? MAKE ME WANT TO VOMIT. lol

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  14. I'm a passive user of Facebook. All I do is sticky beak into all my friends and family, see what they're up to, look at their photos but I hardly every post updates or put up new photos of myself.

    So....I'm not one that understand the addiction.

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  15. I LOVE facebook. I actually facebook, twitter and myspace... with the least amount of time spent on myspace. These days, facebook has largely taken over as the social networking tool of choice in my circle (actually, it has been for a long time - I'm Canadian, apparently we all collectively at some point in like, 2007 or so decided that facebook was cooler than myspace... now my American friends have finally almost all moved over too. I think I only have a handful of friends still ONLY using myspace)

    That being said, Facebook actually used to be a lot cooler and more resourceful for finding friends. It was cool because everyone's pages looked the same, and you knew exactly where to find the info you were looking for (unlike myspace, after they started letting people design their own layouts). It wasn't all about surveys and applications (which, I'm sad to say, I am addicted to quite a few). You could only add people who were your friends (it actually used to give you a prompt to say how do you know this person... one of the checkboxes was "i don't" and then it would say "then why are you adding them?" and I think it would actually block you from adding!)

    Did that help? LOL

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  16. Me too!!! I thought I was the only Facebook hater/holdout. I just don't get it. Twitter's 140-character updates fits my lifestyle way better. It's not too much of a time suck.

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  17. I'm a new and still confused/reluctant twitterer so I'm not yet qualified to compare twitter and facebook in any helpful way. But, I LOVE facebook. I feel reconnected to friends from all stages of my life, and I like that it's an easy and no pressure way to stay in touch to whatever degree you want to stay in touch. I love looking at the pictures people post of families and trips. I enjoy the conversations that come out of status updates. And, because the "friending" process is mutual, I feel comfortable commenting on anything I see. So far on Twitter, I feel funny about "following" people I don't know, though I know that's silly.

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  18. my twitter feeds to facebook. so i only go there to play scrabble...

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  19. I rarely use Facebook. Blogging & Twitter take all of the social media energy I have.

    And I get chills every time I watch them get off of the plan. Amazing!

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  20. Go Clinton!! Truly heroic when he came out of the plane, and... yeah.. go get excited about facebook!

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  21. I use Facebook and Twitter both. They are similar but I can keep in touch with my old friends and long distance family on Facebook. If I had to pick one over the other, I'd do FB. But as it is, I like both.

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  22. So happy for those journalists.

    Count me as one who doesn't "get" Facebook. I've been on it for a couple of years and I think I *may* have posted two updates. I am sure there is something to "get" about it, I just haven't spent enough time to find it.

    I guess it helps if you have old friends to find, but it seems that most of the people I knew in my earlier years just don't do technology.

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  23. LOVE Bill !! Adore him! Always have - always will!!

    FB - funny old application there! no help NW dear - I only dabble a bit in it! I'm still tyring to figure out twitter

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