Sort-of Facebook and blog policy

A little over a week ago, my blog-friend Neil posted his "sort-of Facebook policy" (see it here). I mostly agreed with it and then this morning I violated it. I felt bad afterwards, so as a reminder to myself, I thought I'd specify my facebook policy and my blog policy. Or my sort-of policies. I'll probably deviate from time to time. If you catch me, please point it out.

Like Neil, I keep the Facebook comments generally light and leave the politics and heavier stuff for my blog. A lot of my family eschews these heavy topics and Facebook just doesn't seem to lend itself to in depth discussions. I have found that many times, I can keep up with my family better on Facebook than with the phone. I've also re-established some relationships from when I lived in Charlotte and even a few relationships from school. I don't play games on Facebook and try to hide updates from the games because I really don't care how many jewels you have or need for your crown.


I have a friend who doesn't use Facebook. He worries about the evil that goes on there, the relationships that get started there (he's thinking the extra-marital relationships). He worries about the wasted time (can anyone say Farmville?). He's right to worry. Facebook can be abused just like anything. And if he doesn't want to post, I think it's best he doesn't do it. He's never told me I shouldn't. That's tolerance for both of us.

For my blog, just about anything is open. I will post on any topic, from politics, to cooking, from the books I read to the movies I see. I'll post about the kids and their kids or just something I see that sparks my interest. I'll put together posts on aspects of finances and once did a three-part analysis of payday lending.

In both my blog and Facebook, I'm careful what I post. My theory is that if I don't want my mother or my kids to read it, I shouldn't post it (my mom now uses Facebook and watches my blog). I haven't posted very many of my pictures - not that it's against my policy - it's just too time consuming.

I also take requests on my blog and try to honor those. (For Emily's sake, I often insert how I feel about a subject). If you have something you want me to post about, notify me here, on Facebook or any other way.

And if you catch me going off my policy, let me know. Throw something if you're close enough.

Let's go surfing now, everybody's learning how

No, I'm not talking about that kind of surfing, I'm talking about internet surfing and I have a question for you: When you're surfing the web, where do you surf? While I'd like to be surfing the big waves off Maui, it seems that most web surfers prefer Facebook. According to this article, more time is spent on Facebook than any other site.

The article gives a lot of boring statistics (especially for us surfer dudes), the only interesting stat being that the average person spent just over 4.5 hours on the site in June.

Hulu made the list of most visitors to a site, which I think is neat when you think about Maui, Hulu and surfing (or is that hula?). Seems a lot of people are watching old TV shows on the web instead of Nikelodeon. MySpace is getting edged out by Facebook as anyone with teenagers and young adults know.

But I have to question, what do you do for 4.5 hours on Facebook? I go there, check my messages, and go somewhere else. I visit my Google personalized webpage a LOT and read news articles, check my email, etc.

So the question of the day is, where do you surf? How much time do you spend on any one website (or family of websites)?

P.S. For the record, that is not me in the picture, I'm much more buff, dude.

Social Networking at it's best

I heard a commercial a few weeks back on the radio that focused on social networking. I can't remember what the commercial was for (which questions the effectiveness of the ad), but I think it might have been McDonald's.

Seems a guy was really in to social networking. He had just received a virtual high five from a friend and was looking for a way to spend some of his virtual bucks in another virtual game. Some real friends ask him if he wants to go to McDonald's (or the advertiser's) and he explained that he had to wait on a virtual reply.

The focus was on real networking with real people - - and of course the now forgotten advertiser.

Last night, I had dinner with an old college Friend that I met through Facebook. A couple of weeks ago his sister found me and then I found him. We haven't seen each other in around 27 years, but he commented that we hadn't changed that much, just that we had both put on a couple of pounds (well, understatement is a good thing).

We talked over dinner about our careers, our interests and our families. It's amazing how many times in the last 27 years our paths have nearly crossed, even working for the same company for about three years at one time and never knowing it.

Not sure when we'll have a chance to get together again, we live about 4.5 hours apart, work took me to his town. I make this trip every 2-4 months, but often have dinner plans with a client when I get here.

But at least something positive can come out of social networking.

The Facebook generation

Recently, a young girl from a town close to mine died while jogging. It was her first week at college. I didn't know her and she didn't go to my son's high school, but she went to a school very close by and there were likely some friends in common. I told him about it as I wanted him to hear from me first, not from his friends

Later, out of curiosity, I went to see if she had a facebook page. Silly question, all kids that age have a facebook page. Hers was open and I could see comments and messages that other people had sent her.

Several people left her comments after her death. They knew she was dead and were saying things like "we will miss you" or "I can't believe it's true". Some messages were spiritual and offered hope for the girl or hope for others who read the messages.

This struck me as very odd. I would never leave a message like this. After all, we know the person won't get the message. But I thought it was very neat.