Monday, October 11, 2010

Face-off with Facebook

Now that I’ve touched on LinkedIn, let me state my opinion about it’s more social/informal counterpart, Facebook. Now we all know how successful and addictive it has become. I have been pleasantly surprised and amazed by the number of long lost fiends I have discovered due to Facebook. Some of them after more than 20 years.

But there is the proverbial “other side of the coin” that we must always look at. The one that give pedophiles yet another tool (a very effective one at that) to exploit unwary children, a place where Spammers can go to town, an avenue to easily and unintentionally expose your deep dark secrets to millions of strangers and an addictive tool which can become the most effective time waster since the introduction of news bulletins at national TV networks.

But more than anything what I cannot comprehend is why in the world some folks want to invite total strangers into their “friend list”. Is it because they think it might be “cool” to have a “friend list” that exceeds the 500 or even the 1000 mark? I of course reject these invites. But I know some don’t.

Any idea why?