Facebook; Beer, Sex & iPods
According to Wikipedia, "Facebook was named as the second most "in" thing among undergraduates in America, tied with beer and sex and losing only to the iPod" Grown from an internal 'get to know your neighbor' board in Harvard University, Facebook has come on strong, and is quickly overtaking many of the social networks out there. Many people ask us what Facebook is, what you can do with it, and why bother? Facebook is a social network, and a bit more. Groups of people can connect and voice opinions, post photographs, and share information they might have in common. Think of it is a massive post-card/message board to all your friends, associates, and family. Sign up requires a valid email and is free. Once you sign up, there are tons of things you can add to your profile. Below are some samples:
The Wall
The Wall is a space on each user's profile page that allows friends to post messages for the user to see. One user's wall is visible to anyone with the ability to see their full profile, and different users' wall posts show up in an individual's News Feed. Many users use their friend's walls for leaving short notes. More private discourse is saved for Messages, which are sent to a person's Inbox, and are visible only to the sender and recipient(s) of the Message, much like email.
Photos
One of the most popular applications on Facebook is the Photos application, where users can upload albums of photos, tag friends, and comment on photos. There are popular plugins that allow you to post albums to your profile with ease. Our favorite is the Picasa plug in, for use with Google's free image manager. Combine it with your free Google storage account, and everyone will know what you did last weekend, or for the holidays.
Music
We have on our profiles a widget that allows our friends to see what we are listening to at the moment. This is tied in with Last.Fm and ITunes and allows you to listen to music while your friends can see the tracks. They can search for artists, and listen to snippets of them streaming in as well. Just make sure you get rid of all the rogue Cyndi Lauper tracks in your music collection...
Groups
Joining groups is possible, from political candidates discussion forums, to the wild and wacky. Just like the internet, its' all out there. some examples of groups include: People Who Always Have To Spell Their Names For Other People - Moi, je parle francais donc je suis legalement meilleur(e) que vous! - Web Development - The Web Designer Index - I Miss Nap Time and Recess - Elvis Presley...Need I Say More?? Six Degrees Of Separation - The Experiment - I Base My Life On Tom Waits Songs - Glimpse - The Movie - You know you're an architecture student when... - Beckham in America? Hell yeah he is! - Starbucks Fan Club - The Steve Staunton Brain Transplant Money-raising Campaign - Grad Students: they're Not Bad People, they Just Made Terrible Life Choices - Support the Monks' protest in Burma - 1,000,000 Students Against the Iraq War - Young Musicians & Artists - Art As Life What else would you do during your down time or lunch break, but catch up on Facebook? Look for us, we are there. Send us a friend invite and we will send you fuzzy bunnies - or zombies!
