Tag Archives: social networking

Facebook etiquette

A few guidelines about Facebook etiquette:

  1. If I don't know you, I won't add you.
  2. Even if I know you, if I don't know you well enough I might not add you.
  3. I don't want my Facebook profile look like the worst MySpace nightmare, so I won't accept invitations to become a zombie or to get a stripper name.
  4. If you're a friend I know through work, I'll add you if we're actually friends offline (or good friends online).  For professional relationships please use LinkedIn instead.  Adding me because you met me once is a no-no, unless we actually got along pretty well.
  5. Use common sense with what you put there.

Ok, there it is now, I've been trying to post this for a while.

When is social networking too much?

After reading this post by my good, very Genki friend, I couldn't stop thinking about my own situation.  I use Skype & MSN Messenger daily for real-time communication, Flickr for my photos, Last.fm for music & have even uploaded a couple of public videos to YouTube.  Besides, I post in this blog every day.

Then you have the social networking sites.  I made a MySpace profile ages ago to see what the buzz was all about, but stopped being a regular since I don't really like the whole teen Wild West feeling of it, and most of the people I know offline don't use it.  My main use for it nowadays is just to keep in touch with some of my favourite bands. 

However, the tale doesn't end there.  I use other sites more frequently: Hi5, for most of my Mexican friends, Facebook for my friends here in Belgium and LinkedIn for my professional acquaintances.  Furthermore, I'm present in Tagged for my Asian friends and still have an Orkut profile for a couple of Brazilians. 

It strikes me as interesting that different social networking sites are popular in different geographical areas, and that since they all belong to different companies and conglomerates of course they won't want to agree on interoperability unless something happens.

Some sort of open identity management framework would be really, really nice though.