“Heyyyyyy!!!! Ohmygosh we haven’t talked in ages!!!! How have you been? You look like you’re doing great. WE should totally get together sometime!”

We all have those friends on Facebook. People that we knew ten years ago and don’t talk to anymore. Except for on Facebook.

I have plenty of friends like that. And I even friend requested some of them.

Of course, those friend requests were mostly because they were the people that made my middle school years hell, and I like to stalk them and silently gloat over how much cooler my life is than theirs.

But some of them were sparked by a genuine desire to see how they were doing and what kind of people they had turned into.

So how does this whole reconnecting thing work, especially on the internet, and especially if one of the two parties may not be exactly thrilled at the idea of sitting across from their grade school buddy whom they haven’t seen since 1999? Something about the cyberdistance makes the idea of rekindling a friendship seem more approachable over Facebook (or Myspace, as the case may be). If your old classmate doesn’t feel like answering you, it’s a lot easier to not take it personally when all you’ve done is send a digital message instead of digging out an old phone number and calling out of the blue. Read More »

So, I was out at the bar with some coworkers last week, and a guy started talking about “The New Facebook.”

“There’s a ‘new’ Facebook?” I asked.

“Yeah,” he replied. “Is it bad that I want to go home right now just to try it out?”

“Definitely,” I responded. “Stay here and get drunk. New Facebook will be waiting when the bar closes.”

Facebook has had quite the impact on American pop culture. I mean, really? This guy wanted to leave the bar to try it!? Whenever there’s even a minimal change in the layout and operation of the social network, it causes an uproar.

Remember when mini-feed first popped up? Immediately, groups sprouted all over the internet:
“Down with Mini-Feed!”
“Boycott F/B if They Don’t Get Rid of Mini-Feed Immediately!”
“Facebook Makes Stalking Easier with Mini-Feed!”

You get the point. Of course, now we’re all used to the program, and many of us keep updated via mini-feed every day: “Hey, I saw on Mini-Feed that you got a new job, congratulations!”

So, even though I’m hesitant to add too many applications (I don’t like that we have to check a box giving the ‘application’ full access to the info in our profiles), and even though I’m fully content keeping tabs on my friends the “old way,” I decided to check out the hullabaloo that is The New Facebook. Read More »