Myface and Spacebook

I've been a member of facebook for a few months now. I didn't do anything other than create a profile and leave it blank. In November I started updating my profile, and searching for friends, playing games, writing on walls, etc. Two of the groups I joined were the Library 2.0 interest group, and the I Longboard to Work group. These are groups that are relevent to my daily life. I've become a fan of many web 2.0 things and see their potential for further promoting the library... as long as we stick to the ones that are working. I joined the longboarding group because I have been longboarding to work since my second week here.

The probably reason that facebooks is growing so fast is because older people are now joining it. When I was in my senior year of college I recollect some of my friends signing up for pages. They said that it was for college students only, or institutions had to sign themselves up... or something like that. I don't know whether this is true or not. Now everyone and anyone can sign up, so that isn't a problem. The real draw I've heard from people is it is easy to use and its setting are defaulted as private. This adds a measure of security for people who are timid about posting things on the internet. It erases that, "everyone can see my page!" concern that a lot of people who aren't teenagers feel. Other than the ease of use, and more private settings it displays I don't have any easy answer for why it is growing so fast. In the circles I've moved in on Facebook I've noticed a lack of juvenile internets behavior. There isn't a lot of flaming or bashing, and I haven't seen any of the annoyingly htmled pages that sprawl across myspace. Facebook also doesn't have the negative connotation that myspace has. When I was a teacher my principal led a campaign against myspace, policing it, and suspending people who were up to no good. I haven't heard any stories like that relating to facebook, so it not being myspace might be helpful for its popularity.

Now on to myspace...

Librarians are using myspace to engage teenusers. Both the linked myspace pages had about 800 friends. They are also using this as a contact for authors. Most of the comments left on the library's pages seemed to be greetings and thanks from authors for promoting their books. I like the idea of a myspace to display photos of, and promote events for teens. I didn't see anything ideas I really liked.

I didn't create a myspace and I'm not going to use one.