I'm on Facebook. Now What ?

Martin Brinkmann
Feb 28, 2008
Updated • Jan 14, 2015
Facebook
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I did receive another email today asking me about my Facebook user name. I never put much thought into joining Facebook or any other hyped web community. The main reason for this was came down to "why".

Why should I join Facebook? Only to show everyone a list of my friends, to show them what I'm doing? Will it turn out to be a "I've got more friends than you thing" in the end?

I decided to join Facebook today despite my doubts and am now looking at my Facebook profile. The big question for me is Now What?

I know that many of you are using Facebook and I would like to know what you are doing on Facebook. Why do you think it's cool to join and use. What can I do there other than adding new friends, joining groups and networks?

Is there some real value hidden somewhere that's not obvious to me at this point ?

For those who care, here is the link to my Facebook profile. One thing that I was thinking about was to create a Ghacks group. Not sure if that would be highly successful though, what's the point of those groups anyway? And what's Poke Em doing?

Update: Some time has passed now, years actually, and I'm still on Facebook. Not that I'm using the site much but I'm probably not the right clientele for the site anyway.

I guess it is okay if you want to keep up with friends and what they are doing, especially if they are living in another place that is too far to just visit to get a first-hand experience.

As a webmaster, I have set up a Facebook page for Ghacks and it is doing okay I guess. I post new articles to it and reply to comments as well that I receive by users on the page.

Other than that, I still have not figured out the why for me to use it more.

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Comments

  1. Pietzki said on March 5, 2008 at 10:52 am
    Reply

    Dante: I think you’re being a bit extreme… For example, I moved to Australia several years ago on very short notice, so I didn’t have time to get all my friends’ postal addresses or emails.. By now most of them have moved anyway, so how on earth would I just ‘give them a call’???

    About privacy issues, you guys do know that you can restrict who can see what, don’t you?!

    I don’t like all the applications, vampire invites and all that junk either, but it is easy to block all that. The best part of social networking sites is that they enable you to find people you’ve lost touch with, or stay in touch with people when otherwise you wouldn’t (time, laziness to call etc)…

    My workmates have a group on facebook and it’s great for organising get-togethers, farewell parties etc.. This is because not all of us are always at work at the same time, but on facebook we can just leave a message and eventually everybody can give their input. Of course we could all constantly leave messages at work for each other, but let’s face it: who does that?

  2. Jason Alba said on March 2, 2008 at 7:41 pm
    Reply

    Shoot me an e-mail and I’ll share an electronic version of my new book, I’m on Facebook — Now What??? for you to review as a blogger. No obligation to blog about it, but hopefully it helps answer your question :)

  3. Andrew said on February 29, 2008 at 8:03 pm
    Reply

    Sometimes you lose touch with friends who aren’t so good so you didn’t bother keeping in touch. Or you lost their contact details, moved away, etc., but you still want to catch up.

  4. Jawwad said on February 29, 2008 at 2:49 pm
    Reply

    This exactly the same question that I am asking myself of what REAL benefit I can get? I have made the account but I will put more thought when I have some spare time.

  5. libyano said on February 29, 2008 at 2:45 pm
    Reply

    and I thought I was alone who joined facebook for no reason but because I fed up from neglectign all the email request

  6. vance said on February 29, 2008 at 1:33 pm
    Reply

    I have nothing against social-networking sites like Facebook. I’m just too anti social. hehehehe.

    I also have facebook and pownce but I seldom use them. Hehe.

  7. Syber said on February 29, 2008 at 12:52 pm
    Reply

    I joined Facebook & Myspace early but I don’t like them. You almost nothing to do except killed time. Like kids who are in school, if someone asked you what your Facebook or Myspace is you can say such such… but for me, they are almost nothing, I only use them to contact my co-workers, know what is new with them. I am so surprise about many people post real name, address, family photos, friend’s name. It is not smart.
    My question is why we need use Facebook or Myspace?

  8. Beef said on February 29, 2008 at 12:08 pm
    Reply

    Bingo!
    Welcome to the “social” side of the web.
    The most useless son of internet.

  9. Dante said on February 29, 2008 at 6:22 am
    Reply

    Sites like facebook is a big waste of time and bandwidth. If you haven’t gotten in touch with your “friend” for a long time, there’s probably a reason why you want to continue not being in touch for a longer time. If it’s such a good friend, you wouldn’t not have lost touch to begin with and now need to post all your private stuff on a facebook public site to find them.

    Facebooks are good for kiddies who are too stupid or inexperienced to understand privacy. And they love to create a virtual clique just so that they would be “the cool” clique as compared to all the other “cool” cliques on facebooks.

    And facebooks are also great for the child molesters who “loves” these stupid kids. Because now they know exactly where these stupid kids will be hanging out next Saturday.

  10. duryodhan said on February 29, 2008 at 5:18 am
    Reply

    there is nothing to do. Its just a ritual you have to go through to realise how completely pointless these apps are .

    Now that you have added your friends , they can see your mail id. Now everytime they signup for any stupid “new social networking ” site , they will give their old facebook user and pass, it will send a mail to ALL friends. So get ready to be bombarded.

  11. faizal said on February 29, 2008 at 2:22 am
    Reply

    why using group, try pages. http://www.facebook.com/pages/create.php

  12. Adi said on February 29, 2008 at 1:25 am
    Reply

    It is nothing different from the other social networking sites like myspace, orkut….

    In my opinion its nothing more than kiliing time. If you really are interested in finding old friends and they are worth your search then you could just call them. I dont think you need to open a facebook accunt for that.

    But different people have diff opinions. If you like it just enjoy the ride otherwise ghacks is waiting for your glorious posts

  13. xtor said on February 29, 2008 at 12:53 am
    Reply

    I think people get this all fecebook thing wrong. It doesn’t matter what you do, just add stuff, as much as possible, so that the big brother behind it can investigate you, your friends, your family, and get all that information that they wouldn’t be able to get otherwise.

    How this works:

    BIG companies and governments want to know more about you.

    They know that if they ask, they want get a thing from you, and spying is baaaad, right? ;), so they use an old social engineering trick to make YOU TELL THEM.

    You are happy, because you are ignorant of what you are really doing (ignorance is bliss, right?), and they are happy because they get what they want.

    enjoy facebook, and don’t forget to tell all your secrets, and all the people you know. Somebody, somewhere might find that info useful. ;)

  14. Andrew said on February 29, 2008 at 12:09 am
    Reply

    I asked practically the same questions when I was new to FB, having avoided it as much as myspace.

    Now I have managed to use it to link up with many old friends, (and other friends have found me too). I like to use it as a good way to see what my buddies are up to, share pictures and stories, keep in touch. I tend to abhor the ‘applications’ that everyone invites you to, and detest the way those apps make you invite others just to use them, but I can see why they do it.

    Step 1: Upload a good profile picture of yourself so that your old friends searching for people with similar names to yours will be able to identify you.

    Step 2: Search for old friends. Once you’ve found them, look at their friends list and see if you notice any more of your old friends.

    Step 3; Add other pics that you have, and ‘tag’ the pics. Other FB members that you tag will get a notice and will go see the pic. Non members can be invited to go see their pic. (Or you can just send a link)

    I ignore Poking, it’s a waste of time. I don’t use groups.. maybe someone else can comment there.

    There are some fun apps, like quizzies, movie stuff, etc.

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