Thing 20: My Space and Facebook

I have registered for a Facebook account and added several friends. I really liked the feature where Facebook would search your address book and let you know if anyone in your book already has a Facebook account. I found several family members that way. I also entered my high school and graduation year and found several old classmates. I added a little to my profile, including a photo. I also joined a couple of the library groups that were recommended plus I found the 23 Things site and joined the group. This was very interesting. Can't see a way to post a link here, though. It seems very easy to use and it's fun getting started, no wonder it's growing so quickly.

I was curious about MySpace too so I set up an account there as well. First I looked at the recommended library sites. They were interesting and full of information. Very much focused on their teen library patrons. How did they personalize their pages so much? I don't see where it's an option. But it's a nice way to keep MySpace users aware of library happenings. One of the articles in the Resources section commented that you shouldn't set up an account just to set up an account, if you're going to do so make it useful, make it a "portal". I interpret that to mean use it as a way to make people aware of what you have and have access to by going to the library website...

I didn't think it was easy at all to find contacts through MySpace. There was no feature to cross check your email contacts as in Facebook. I couldn't seem to do much or explore, or find folks to add to my contacts list. I started searching for a 23 Things account and started getting "Serving is too busy" warnings. Interesting.
Find me on MySpace and be my friend!

In both cases I am uncomfortable in putting any personal information online. I was excited at first when I found family, but in reading some more of the Resources articles that talk about privacy and such I am not sure I am personally comfortable being out there in cyberland. I found the security settings in both and made modifications there. I was scanning through friends of friends and realizing they were all teens and twenty somethings populating this world. Except for my brother-in-law, but he's a college professor. I'm sure that is a useful medium for students to have for contacting their teacher with a question...