Out of all the social networking sites I've ever been on, I think Facebook is the coolest. It's built around existing social networks (schools, cities), so it's easy to track down and keep tabs on a lot of people easily. Plus the site is incredibly intuitive, clean, and easy to use. If you like social networking sites, you will love Facebook, because it is the best, IMO. If you don't, you will not.

These things are a gold mine for advertisers, and if they aren't yet, it's because they're a stealth gold mine for advertisers -- check the fine print about changes in the privacy policy. You're a target.

I normally feel the same as you about dumb social networking sites, but FaceBook contains people you actually might want to talk to. People you actually have some sort of real-world commonality with. People you know. You can basically only find/connect to/talk to people whose networks you are part of -- your college, your high school, your former jobs, your hometown. I despise MySpace, but I like FaceBook.

It's not that it's so great, it's that it's so evolved, like antibiotic resistance, it just goes right to the social centers of your brain.

Whenever someone posts a message, or tags you in a photograph or whatever, you get an email saying "hey, people are talking about you, do you want to know what they're saying? Saying about you? Because they're saying it right now", so of course you have to visit the site, and when you do, maybe you post a follow up or whatever, and that causes someone else to get the email and the CYCLE CONTINUES UNTIL WE'RE ALL DEAD

Richard Platel, toronto ON network.

(Hahaha, you're right, Capn; but it is possible to turn off the notification e-mails, thank goodness).

I know. I'm sick of getting invites from friends and having to email them to tell them, "STOP giving my email out to networking sites!"

it's easy to track down and keep tabs on a lot of people easily

*shudders/stocks cave with canned goods*

I'm with Hugh. I'm not quite willing to donate my personal information to people who will either:
a) sell it
b) have it stolen
c) screw up and leave it unprotected
d) all of the above.

Facebook is really strange- because of the News Feed, I actually find out things through the site. Found out about many engagements and at least two pregnancies (one just today) when it popped up on my News Feed.

I don't know, the only social networking site I've found remotely useful is LinkedIn. I'm glad that my friends know enough not to give my email address out to the hot social networking site of the month.

I'm on Facebook, but its "main" feature is useless to me, because I can't join my fucking college network! Why? Because when I click "join this network", it sends an e-mail to my college e-mail address, which I haven't accessed in eight years, and can't possibly get into now!

I'm glad that my friends know enough not to give my email address out to the hot social networking site of the month.

See, that's one of my concerns. I have an email address I use for companies, mailing lists, and other spam-magnet type things, and the one they're giving out ain't it. Thanks to the contributions here I can see why people are attracted to Facebook, but even with the advantages described above I don't see myself using it, and am a bit weirded out that several people have listed me as a 'friend' on a site that I don't know that I want to belong to (these are indeed friends of mine, and people I otherwise respect).

Hugh puts his finger on another aspect that bothers me--I don't like the idea of creating a compendium of personal information on one site, even if it is theoretically only accessible to people in my 'network'. Does this mean people I specifically give permission to view it, or to all people in, f'rinstance, the 'possibly mad hard-drinkin' cat ladies on islands' network? And what's to stop them from later mining this information for targeted advertising?

And interrobang, well for fuck's sake, that's one of the few things that had me considering it. Who the hell keeps their uni/college email address after they've left? Some, but not many, I'd expect.

elizard: Yeah, you can make your profile information as private as you want. Your profile can be visible to the people who are members of the same network you are (work, school, city) in case you want random people to be able to find you and become your friend, or you can restrict it so much that only friends can see what you put up, and you can even limit how much certain friends see.

But I got on Facebook back when it was still thefacebook.com, and only open to certain colleges. It was a good way to keep tabs on people from my former uni as well as high school friends that I wanted to keep in touch with. If any of you old farts (and I say that tongue firmly in cheek) don't see what the big draw is and don't want to join, I'm not going to expend the effort to convince you. There's nothing in it for me.

I signed up for Facebook and searched for anyone I know in any of the half a dozen schools that I've been to and found exactly one person. I'm not interested in contacting random people that I don't know or have them contact me so I'm sort of lost as to what I'm supposed to do with it. I feel like I'm totally missing the point of these kind of sites. Can anyone explain it to me?

Back when it was TheFacebook.com! I remember those days!

I don't like the idea of creating a compendium of personal information on one site

But what about MetaChat? We've got a fair compendium about many people here, including you, elizard. And this site has none of the protections FaceBook has.

I've given up thinking my existence was private. Our perceptions of what privacy should mean were temporal, mid-20th-century concepts. In times before that, almost nothing about an individual was private. The thoroughness with which people were known before the age of the car and the phone would astound even us in the internet age.

Not long ago I decided I didn't mind having an integrated identity. If you know me, you know me. My phone number's listed in the phone book with my address. And being marketed to? The census took care of that a long time ago. Occasionally I hear from someone I don't want to connect with, and I generally just ignore them or coolly brush the communication off, just as I would if I met them at a party.

I don't know - the privacy question is an interesting one, but Facebook doesn't bother me.

the 'possibly mad hard-drinkin' cat ladies on islands' network?

Where is this network and why does the thought of it kinda turn me on?

But what about MetaChat?

Yeah, that thought occurred to me, but here it's scattered over threads and posts and whatnot, so if you wanted to put a profile together you'd have to work for it. False comfort, perhaps, but it works for me. You raise some very good points, though, Miko.

Where is this network

Come here and I'll show you. But then, of course, I'd have to kill you.

I can't believe I didn't say this last night- Facebook is bringing together my familiy. We found a previously unknown branch of my family on the West Coast (see post here), and just today it's looking like there are some more of us in Canada! Yaaaaaaaaaaay!

Maybe if Facebook had come along 4 years ago I wouldn'ta wasted all that time filling out Friendster and *PUKE* Orkut. I was done with the social networking thing before MySpace even happened, and I can't bring myself to get going with another.

East Coast college grads seem to think that Facebook is the best because it has good penetration among their networks. That's the only reason to like one of these things.

I like Tribe because all my Burning Man buddies are there plus lots of interesting artsy types around the Bay Area. LinkedIn has also broken through for me because I work in dotcoms around the Valley and it's pretty much how resumes get out places nowadays. Once upon a lifetime ago it was the Dice.com telnet service, now it's LinkedIn... whatever.

Facebook is on the adoption curve with the educated class now. Orkut has Brazil locked in. Friendster's got the Phillipines. MySpace has the young'uns. No one's got it all.