Sticking my nose in Facebook

From Real Life Adventures by Gary Wise and Lance Aldrich.
This image was obtained from UClick GoComics, but I read it
back in August -- in print -- in the Chicago Sun-Times.

It's not that I haven't been aware of Facebook. My kids have been on it for some time. Occasionally I'll find new horror story about Facebook -- or something funny about Facebook and email them or post it here. (In the latter vein, I'd suggest that this link is worth following. If you're in a more serious mood, consider this ABA Journal Law News Now story from early September, in which Martha Neil reported that the Florida Board of Bar Examiners has announced plans to search applicants' social networking sites, such as Facebook, "on a case-by-case basis, focusing on those who have demonstrated problem conduct in the past.")

My kids' involvement with Facebook has provided me with one consistent reason why I have not plunged in previously. The kids told me I'd have to apply for and be accepted by each child as their "friend" -- and I have only recently been assured that my requests would be given due consideration. (Even now, no absolute promises have been made. So I'm still worried about how I might have to cope with rejection.)

But... I've tried to keep up to date on the subject, reading and only partially understanding articles like this one, from the June 22, 2009 edition of Wired Magazine, about "Facebook's Plan to Dominate the Internet -- and Keep Google Out." In the article Fred Vogelstein reports that "the Google-Facebook rivalry isn't just going strong, it has evolved into a full-blown battle over the future of the Internet—its structure, design, and utility."

Who knew?

And, in the meantime, it isn't just Facebook that has passed me by. Something called Twitter seems to have caught on -- although more, according to this August 25, 2009 article in the New York Times, with businesspeople than college students. I might have imagined that "micro blogging" amounted to something along these lines:

From the web comic Luke Surl.com

I asked my kids about Twitter and they were all nonplussed -- leading me to conclude, until I saw the New York Times article anyway, that Twitter would be just a passing fad. And then I read in Bethany Krajelis' article for the September 2, 2009 Chicago Daily Law Bulletin that the Illinois Supreme Court had "signed on to Twitter."

On Twitter, as I understand it, people -- or courts -- sign on to post and others may choose to enlist as "followers." Oprah gathered tens of thousands of followers for her "tweets" in a single day. If I sign up to tweet and somebody signs up to follow me and if I also sign up to follow that person, who's following who? Aren't we then just going in circles? I suppose I'll have to figure all this out next.

But one crisis at a time: I have now successfully signed on to Facebook. *Shudder* One thing only is certain about this brave new experiment in social networking: From tonight on, Facebook will not be as "cool" as it may once have been.