I’ve been meaning to double back on this topic for awhile, but never got around to it. I basically have to rescind my previous comments about Facebook. I resisted the draw of Facebook for awhile, but then eventually caved. It became too much to ignore with the sheer volume of people encouraging me to join. Curiosity eventually got the better of me. When I finally did join I found it ridiculously easy to find people I knew. These weren’t people I had met through the internet or anything, these were honest to goodness people I knew from high school, college, work and wherever else. Many of these people I never knew their email addresses or had just lost contact in general, so it was great to talk with many of these people again.

The thing I find most crazy is how viral the promotion of Facebook has become. I hear people talk all the time about Facebook, so I think much of the buzz about the site comes from word of mouth. When I recently lost my job many of the people who were in the same boat as myself used it as a rallying point to keep in touch with former co-workers. I find the site has almost become a social bridge for most people, meshing the online and real worlds. I find the initial buzz from using the site has worn off for me, but I still find the site very handy.

The part that keeps me coming back is what will eventually make this site trump MySpace. This feature is the home page. The home page acts as an almost tabloid feed of what is going on in the lives of your friends. You can see when someone has uploaded some pictures, or when someone is having a party next weekend. Facebook isn’t trying to show you the next big thing in rock or get you to use their streaming video services like MySpace does. The content they are delivering is essentially the lives of your social network in a digestible format. That is what keeps it fresh and interesting.