I'm not your friend

I am now getting about one invitation per week to join Facebook, the mother of all social networks (this season at least).   So far, I have resisted.  I really don't want to join Facebook, to set up a Facebook page, to spam my 'friends' and colleagues with invites, to think about what photos to share or how to add widget bling to my new public persona.  Enough already!  I'm Linked In, I'm Xing'ing, I've got a blog where people can leave comments (but don't very often), and you can find a brief bio and studio headshot of me on our corporate home page.  Surely that is enough about me!?

People I trust (and who are over 30) are joining Facebook and they tell me it's better, more versatile, more extensible than any other social network.  I'm happy to believe all that, but I also think that we are seeing declining marginal returns from all this networking.  Teenagers may have lots of spare time to fill with interactions with the ever growing concentric circles of friends and flirts, but most adults I know don't have a lot of slack in their daily system. 

Keeping up with blogs and LinkedIn network updates is already consuming time at a rate that makes you wonder whether you get enough out of it.  Since most of these networks now reward the consummate collector of contacts (see The Value of Friend-Raising), the actual 'social' dimension is quickly getting lost.   Valleywag goes further in its recent post: 5 Reasons Why Friends Are Evil.  Perhaps evil is taking it too far, but I would certainly categorise most of your recently acquired online friends as superfluous...

If you want me to be your friend, try taking me out for coffee...

Comments

[REG CROWDER]

Your points are well made. These social networking things are positively raining upon me from the sky (or wherever they come from). I decided to be completely mercenary and turn all of them into promotional materials for my freelance business writing.

I got lured onto/into Facebook by a real-world friend who sent me an invitation. I accepted. Then I clicked here and there and (I think this is what happened) Facebook started going through my e-mail address book and sending invitations to EVERYBODY in it.

So, I may have unknowingly been one of the people who asked you to be my friend. I am not unhappy to have been ignored. If Facebook does anything else on my behalf without my knowledge, feel free to ignore that, too.

STRANGELY, in the first two days after being sucked into Facebook, it brought me two new clients -- out of the blue.

So, I'm just using Facebook as a free, online sales brochure.

-- REG CROWDER
London, UK and Brittany, France

http://www.MediaBistro.com/RegCrowder

[Nic Brisbourne]

Hey Max,

I get more into Facebook as the weeks go by. Yesterday I was writing an article on virtual worlds, posted that to my status on Facebook and got two messages with ideas I could use. Good stuff.

cheers,
N

[Yaron]

Could not agree more, Max.
Having to face the same plague on a daily basis. If anything, it makes me doubt the quality of my own friends.
;)
Yaron
Ion Equity

[DJ Boba Fett]

I propose an electronic Jihad against this evil fascistic dictatorship run by a child. Please read my blog at www.myspace.com/djbobafett to see my running trials and tribulations with this site. At this point, they up and cancelled me, with over 200 hours of work on my site, pages, events, profiles and advertisements. They are billing my card even though I no longer have an account. I called the Palo Alto offices at 650-543-4800 to dispute the bill (as it's ads for a deleted site they're billing me for) and had to call 3 times before a human picked up. I talked to a female Sam (supposedly the only Sam that works there, yeah right) and she said they do NOT offer voice billing support. i told her that by refusing to work with me, she is okaying my choice to dispute the charges with my credit card company. We'll see. If you have ANY problems with the site or infrastructure, please call them, ask to talk to SAM, and tell them "DJ Boba Fett sent you."