On the show I ended up taking the opposite side of what Om was saying, and to a lesser extent yourself. However what I find fascinating is the way the concept of friendship, and at a larger level, the concept of community, is changing. Facebook influences this, but it would be happening regardless of Facebook due to the Internet in general.

Some people correctly identify how rapidly the definitions of these words are shifting and becoming entirely subjective. Everyone seems to have their own sense of what a friend is, and what being part of a community means. So much so that you can get a sense of who someone is based on how they define the circles that make up their social experiences. Nancy touched upon this on-air by openly wondering if we were learning more about Om than discussing Facebook.

There’s been rumours for a while that Facebook will introduce greater differentiation within social network layers, and the ad-platform is a step in that direction. That way you can have categories of friends that are self-defined and organized. Maybe they’ll even take over and integrate with hatebook.

-jesse

When I really think about how to work around this problem, I come to the point of Hugh’s cartoon — why should I change! The tool, Facebook is broken, the software doesn’t work the way I want it to yet.

I get a lot out of Facebook, but now that we have it, I continue to find it less of a solution, and more of an opportunity for them or someone else to do it even better.

I very much enjoyed the Facebook discussion on TVO’s “Agenda”. Like you I use it for professional reasons and was a somewhat early subscriber.

I’ve often advised my 15-year-old to discriminate between “friends” and “associates.” Now he gets to throw the motherly advice back at me every time I log on to Facebook. And although I remained charmed by the clean, simple interface and captivated by the apps, it may be time to move on …