Monday, June 15, 2009

Twitter VS. Facebook, or I have nothing to blog about


Once I was a nay-sayer of Facebook and while I am still a bit annoyed by Twitter, I see it has its moments. Consider Lance Armstrong for a minute. He has more than a 1,000,000 followers and growing! All he basically talks about is how great his life is, how much he rides or plays kickball or listens to the "coolest" music. Just 140 characters that causes people from every walk of life to comment as if they know him. It's extraordinary really. I would venture to guess that if you get a single mention in one of Lance's Tweets, your follower number will bump up significantly purely by intrigue. In many cases it has become a quest for followers. Someone I know is constantly monitoring the number. "Up 25 today!" or "This week I gathered another 120." Nevermind the fact that most of the jargon that riddles the landscape is nonsense. It's the American way to think more about quantity than quality.

Facebook for me has become fun. I was Anti-FB at one time and then I started gaining "Friends". The weird thing is that I know perhaps 50 percent of the people. Most are work-related but more and more are people from my childhood. Initially I wasn't much into "hooking" up with people from elementary, middle or high school, but I have slowly become fascinated by their stories. People I have known for more than 30 years have "come into" my life. A high school friend who lives less than five miles away. A childhood-elementary school friend who I would likely never cross paths with in "real" life has suddenly become a friend again in, well, real life. A high school mate who I "discovered" on Facebook was where I spent two days in Italy with the family. I would have never see him again without Facebook. There are also the train wrecks. People from the past who have taken strange paths.

I have used Facebook extensively for work, whether it be interviews for the magazine or learning of new products coming down the line.

There are still people who think Facebook is lame. It has almost become cool to hate it. Snide remarks like "Facebook is stupid" abound, but it's one of those cases where if you aren't in it you don't know. Besides what make you think you are so cool? K*I*T. Have a bitchen summer. Like fer-sure.