hey there, i found this blog through kris, and i thought this was really interesting. facebook didn't always have this news feed feature, and when they implemented it people were actually completely horrified that all of a sudden all their actions that had once been semi-private became announced to everyone. at the time the site was still just for high school and college students, so the dillemma of having all your friends get the newsflash that, for instance, you'd added someone as a friend who was outside of your clique or whatever came with a lot more dramatic consequences. people were totally up in arms about it, and the founder even ended up having to apologize:

http://blog.facebook.com/blog.php?post=2208562130.

so it's interesting now to see reactions to this feature, when people know it's something that they can expect from the get-go, that are so different. altho it does still raise the question of how exactly people are navigating all the different, semi-private contexts of their lives being exposed (or at least exposable) to one another.

One of the ways we define ourselves and know our world is through other people and how we fit into their stories, or how our story fits into theirs. Even "the news" works in this way in creating a shared story that our individual stories can set against as reference.

For those of us whose stories intersect with the online world, we have a need (addicition in some) to keep defining ourselves online in terms of "news" in our own stories, in our friends' stories, and the common world stories that we share.

We're just going over the peak of the era of continuous partial attention, where being current with each other through all of these little online connections is so important in what it means to be defined as a person right now.

Right now, in some ways, in some groups, you aren't really a person unless you're continuously connected to others online.

(Of course, there always will be other ways to be a person--other ways to be part of the stories. . .)

Great blog post. It is fully understandable why you have fallen for Facebook. The transparency and velocity of knowledge flow is amazing on facebook.

It is compelling and quite addicting. As more developers and services bring new integrated applications to the facebook f8 platform people will not have to leave to do what they need to do online.

We are huge fans of facebook and have a blog that reviews and rates facebook applications and widgets. We are publishing detailed text and video reviews with ratings to help people find the most useful applications on facebook.

http://www.facereviews.com

We also started a Facebook Applications Group: http://www.facebook.com/group.php?gid=2548175922

Worthy to note that we did not give the Twitter widget a very good rating (it is pretty lightweight in it's integration; compared to what it could be).

There is a deluge of new applications being developed and some are better than others and it is only a matter of time before this reaches critical mass (beyond the 25 million users). Share the love!

Become my friend... lol http://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=540680174

Cheers,

Rodney Rumford

I was pretty impressed with Facebook when I opened an account. Coming from MySpace, I liked the simple interface and lack of spam... and that MANY people I know, or knew at some point in my life was on it... I even encouraged others to join...

But the honeymoon didn't last long... I deleted my Facebook profile two weeks ago.

I've written a number of blogs about Facebook... including an extensive one of why I left... if your interested.

The news or updates for those in your selective network in Facebook as well as the groups you care about is done very well in Facebook. This capturing the digital lifestream and aggregating it is something that really sets Facebook apart from most other social software apps on the web.

Great post.

I have never used Facebook, nor have I much considered using it before your glowing recommendation. I suppose I think of the variety of social networking tools that are out there, and wonder how the learning curve and efforts to begin using another one and integrating it into my work and life will pay off. I know I have tried LinkedIn, but have not fully embraced it since I have not seen anybody use it in a way that has increased or improved anything (though I hope to see somebody demonstrate it). I also know that FaceBook is blocked from my organization's firewall, and I am not sure I can make a business case to have the website unblocked.

Well, I cant agree more.

I must say I was hesitant at first.. But Facebook luredme in.. And I'm not the only one who fell in. I think i'm addicted.
http://snoopiebark.blogspot.com/