I am a big advocate of social networking! I was part of MySpace for awhile, but found it really hard to use (I never understood the HTML coding and found it hard to make my profile "pretty"). I also found MySpace full of "clutter" more than social networking. My brother than got me hooked on Facebook. When he mentioned the idea of it, I was reluctant since my experience on MySpace wasn't enjoyable. I took his advice and am now a HUGE fan of Facebook and a regular user. I have found friends from elementary and high school, my old gymnastics teammates, relatives, and co-workers. Since I'm from Canada, most of my contacts are still there and I'm finding it a great way to stay connected with everyone! I love being able to log into Facebook and see pictures posted of my brother's trip to the Dominican Republic, a former classmate's new baby pictures, a relative's wedding that I wasn't able to attend... it has been great with making me still feel connected to everyone back home even though I'm living in Washington now. I also love logging in and seeing everyone's "status" updates... it's amazing how a few words can reveal so much about how a person is feeling, what they're up to, issues they are dealing with, etc. I found out one of my cousins was pregnant just by reading their status update! I find it a fun way to keep up with the going's on in people's lives and you can reach out and reply to them via their wall or a message. At first I was thinking it was being nosy but then I realized that people voluntarily supply this information and know it's going to get read and/or responded to. I've also stepped out of my box and have joined a couple of groups/communities that are interesting to me and have connected with some great people via those networks.
As Facebook does gain in popularity I am noticing the clutter (I get invite for apps all the time, the FunWall drives me crazy, and I dislike that "superpoke" thing!) but I try to be very tasteful and selective when it comes to adding applications on my profile and the friends I add. I am trying to keep it to people I have met face to face at some point in my life as opposed to the "joe schmoe" who is a friend of a cousin of a mechanic. I heard an interesting debate on the radio one time about someone who was applying for a job and the potential employer did a search for her on MySpace and encountered some very controversial pictures and a really trashy MySpace page. The employer was both shocked and disappointed as the applicant had been very impressive and professional during the interview and had been one of the best candidates they had seen that day. The business ended up not hiring her because their philosophy was, based on her "hardcore" lifestyle as illustrated on her MySpace profile, how reliable of an employee would she actually be? What a great opportunity gone to waste all because of how you represent yourself on a social networking site! I took this into consideration when I developed my Facebook profile (going on the assumption you never know who could be looking at it) and I try to keep it tasteful and respectful yet still make it a true representation of who I am.
I enjoyed reading the opposing viewpoints during this lesson on libraries being a valuable resource to appeal to the teen demographic but also posing as an "invasion" in their social networking community. There were some great points brought up on both sides and ones I never would have thought of. I'm kind of on the fence with how I feel about this issue. The libraries they cited as examples who are using social networks to promote their programs (Steele Creek and Denver Library) seemed to be successful. I also took a look at the FVRL's YAAB MySpace page and it looks like it's gotten a good response from the teen demographic. I guess time will tell whether this will be a good medium to reach out to people.
I was having SO much fun and was even being a little goofy! The image generators were so easy to use and figure out... it looks like you spent hours creating something when all you did was a few clicks of your mouse and the computer did all the work.
And of course, after my "smashing and successful" debut on Broadway I couldn't help but name a street after myself! HAHAHA!
