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What’s a “Friend” These Days?
By Mark Evans | November 9, 2007
A couple of days ago, I was on a television show called The Agenda that looked whether “Is Facebook a Fad?”.
For the most part, it was pretty standard fare: why Facebook has become so big so fast; how can it be worth $15-billion; why did Microsoft make the $250-million investment; and how will Facebook make money.
But during the last part of the conversation - which featured five people, including Mathew Ingram and Om Malik - did it move into interesting territory: what do people get from Facebook and whether having digital friends is the same as having real relationships with off-line friends.
Here, the panel split. Om and I rallied on the side of real friends - people you actually meet, see and talk to - while some other panelists see Facebook as an amazing tool that encourages people to be even more social, and how it opens up opportunities to develop new friendships. It’s a topic that you could have done an entire show on.
Personally, I find the whole friends thing on Facebook somewhat bizarre.
I have 222 people, many of whom I’ve never met or, at best, have little or no connection. Yet, I get plenty of friend requests. Do I reject some of them or accept them all? So far, I’ve pretty much accepted everyone based on the idea that my presence on Facebook is business-focused as opposed to personal. I see having a Facebook profile a lot like having a business card.
Recently, though, I’ve been thinking that maybe I should have been a little more discrimminating about my “friends”, or perhaps created a second profile for “real” friends. I guess it’s based on the idea that the bigger your Facebook network, the more people who know about who you are and what you do. As a result, I’ve become quite cautious about what I put on Facebook given there are people on my network that I really don’t know.
Sure, it’s my fault for climbing on the Facebook Friends bandwagon, although I’m more of an invitee than a inviter. Maybe my mixed views on Facebook have to do with the fact I’m a people person with lots of friends (real ones who’s I’ve met and cultivated relationships) as opposed to digital animal. It could be a personality thing or (and I hate to admit it) an age thing.
That said, I have connected and met a lot of people through the Web. Blogging, for example, has opened up a new world. It was interesting yesterday that Wordpress domo Matt Mullenweg said during a keynote at BlogWord that although he was on 15 social networks “I feel like the best profile of me is my blog. I will go through a person’s blog archives if we are considering hiring them.”
At the end of the day, the question is whether it’s worth being on Facebook. Maybe, but I could happily live without it.
Update: According to a British study by Dr. Will Reader, people who have a lot of Facebook friends have no more real friends than non-Facebook users. (Hat tip: Digital Lifestyles). The NYT’s Bits suggests Facebook’s new social advertising strategy could prompt reduce the number of friends.
(Cartoon credit: Gaping Void)
Technorati Tags: Facebook, Matt Mullenweg, Om Malik
Topics: Web 2.0 |
