The Waiting game...

ahh...the waiting game sucks, let's play hungry, hungry hippo!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kVWdf1Ky2bI

Seriously, the waiting game does suck, but in this case the waiting game only lasted 8 days before I received my first friend request. At the time, I had no idea who this person was. I did recall that he was one of facebook's suggestions during the initial account creation stage though I couldn't for the life of me understand why? It's only recently that I sort of figured it out. This person was someone I had exchanged quite a few emails with over the years. We belonged to the same car enthusiast email listserv - the Peugeot list, hosted by Yahoo. In fact, I had sold him a car back in '07. Of course, I am not exactly sure how he found me on Facebook since I mentioned in a previous post that I did not have location info or a current photo of me on there. The possibility exists that he happened to do a search for me but the timing of it, leads me to believe otherwise. I have to assume that FB suggested that he add me?

This of course begs the question, how does FB know that I know him? Do they have access to his address book? He is NOT in my "contacts" list. FWIW, his email address is on Yahoo. Does Yahoo regularly sell this sort of information to FB? Does Google? Google claims that they don't but of late I have been getting some strange and disconcerting behavior on FB's "People You May Know". These are NOT people who I have a mutual friend with. I'm not only beginning to wonder what exactly is going on here but getting quite annoyed. What right does google (gmail) have to sell this most personal of info? (again, they claim they don't). I'll probably devote a whole other post to this topic because a google search on this, returns nothing that solves it. Searches on FB, turned up this: https://www.facebook.com/contact_importer/remove_uploads.php, which didn't fix the problem either, but leads me to believe that's it their Facebook app that is the culprit. OK, sorry..enough about this. I'll delve more deeply into this in a future post.

Account Creation

As per the guidelines set forth in my little experiment, I finally created an account on December 10, 2010.

I used my real name or at least the one I use everyday, not my official name that is on my passport and driver's license. I couldn't find the "yes, please" check box for SEX so I went with male. I did not however put my current location - rather I chose one at random, I think in Siberia. I then posted a photo from when I was 3 yrs old. It was the photo from my greencard. I put my real birthday and I think that's about it.

After filling out your info or is it before? I can't recall but at some point Facebook "add friends". I skipped this part. It then brings you to "find friends", I skipped this part as well. Of course, they don't want you to remain friendless - can't do much data mining if you have no social network to mine - so they help you by suggesting people to add. How nice of them. If I recall correctly of the 10 or so people they suggested, my brother was the only one who I knew. I didn't ask him to "friend" me however as that would have been in violation of my rules, so instead I finished the account creation process and patiently waited for the "friend" requests to just roll in...and waited, and waited - all the time wondering just HOW they were going to find me with the rather sparse information that I had given.

The Experiment

About ten months ago finally relented and decided to join the masses and create a Facebook account. As I mentioned in a previous post I thought it would be far more interesting if I made an experiment out of it. Maybe idea is a better description since in a real experiment you usually need a control group and there is very little actual science going on here. It's not like I'm trying to figure out how Facebook's algorithm works or anything like that. I simply thought it might be interesting to see how your "friends" grow and how people find you. With that in mind I laid down some ground rules and parameters just to make it even more interesting.

First off, I only filled in the absolute minimum amount of info when creating the account. I also did NOT include my real location as that would make things too easy for Facebook.

Secondly, during the initial phase I am not allowed to add anyone. I can only add those who have sent me "friend" requests.

Lastly, if someone asks me if I'm on Facebook I have to tell them the truth. Arghh...this one was tougher than I thought it would be as I'm still not proud of it ;)

The idea behind the first two above was simple: I want to randomize the experiment as much as possible. Having your true location makes its too easy for people to find you. Adding people yourself takes away much of the randomness of how your friends group grows. I'll admit, though I haven't yet added anyone, I have let it slip a time or two that I had an account

and told a couple of people to send me friend requests - sort of cheating.

Well, that's pretty much it for the idea. As of this post, I have 25 friends - mostly family members. I probably have another 20 unanswered friend requests which I have had to purposely hold up because I kept procrastinating on this blog thing. In my next post I will

recount how it has gone thus far and then after that, I can approve some of the requests and really see it grows. Like I mentioned before, it would have been much better to have started the blog concurrently with the account but oh well, nothing I can do about that now.

"Procrastination is like masturbation. At first it feels good, but in the end you're only screwing yourself. " -Author Unknown

Welcome to Facebook!!!

Well after about 9 months of mostly stealth participation in Facebook, I was outed - found out - exposed. The jig was up. There could be no more making fun of my local facebook evangelists.
At least, not without admitting that I had become one of them - no not an evangelist but a user nonetheless. I use the term Facebook evangelists because that is in essence what they are. They are quite similar to the Mormon's or Jehova's witnesses that we often encounter who seem hell bent on trying to get you to sign up to their club. I believe both the Mormon's and Jehova's witnesses at least have a good excuse - they are somewhat mandated by their respective religions to "save" us by joining them. These Facebook evangelists have no such excuse! They have no such mandate that I know of but seem to relish chastising people for not being on Facebook as if you are missing out on something so truly wonderful that your life simply can't do without it. Just imagine all the poor souls that came before us - they must have lead such empty lives before the creation of Facebook. Am I to assume as well that these evangelists believe their lives poorer for not having you on Facebook with them? To these people I would often reply with the oft attributed quote (of Grouch Marx) - " I DON'T WANT TO BELONG TO ANY CLUB THAT WILL ACCEPT PEOPLE LIKE ME AS A MEMBER". This of course might have received a chuckle and put them off for a moment, but they would soon return to their recruitment drive. WHY aren't you on Facebook? Why should I be? is that the default position? Trust me I had a million excuses for NOT creating an account but the main my main objection is one that I still believe to be quite true - Facebook is a CLASSIC time waster. Personally, I already have a multitude of non productive ways to waste time including writing a blog that no one will ever read :P

So why then did I join Facebook? The truth is, I'm not really sure. Part of my motivation was so I could chastise my Facebook addicted friends after I realized just how useless Facebook really was or at least how underwhelming it is. Another reason - how could I properly continue to criticize something that I had never tried? and probably the most practical reason for joining - I had run out of room on my Picasa/Google accounts and the promise of unlimited photo storage seemed kind of enticing. So one day on a whim, while I had a friend visiting me from Portugal, I decided to create an account. I also decided that it would be a far more interesting experience if I did a little experiment when I joined. Hence the reason for this blog. I'll reveal the details of this experiment in my next post but let's just say that I should have done this blog in parallel with creating an account. I will do my best to catch myself up and hopefully not lose much of the general idea in the process. Till my next post...

Houston, we have lift off!!!

OK, before I really get into it I feel I should mention the basic purpose of this whole thing and that I'm doing this for me - to entertain myself.

This blog...
a) shouldn't be taken too seriously
b) is more to document what the organic and non organic growth of my "friends" is like
c) will likely never be read by anyone
d) will likely not be even read by me once I get it all down

That being said, let the game begin.