To Facebook Or Not To Facebook, That Is The Question?

Today's million dollar question...To Facebook, Or Not To Facebook?

So, unless you have been living under a rock for the past 3 years (and if you are kudos for setting up your wireless Internet enabling you to read this), I'm sure you have heard about Facebook. I know that in my own life, Facebook seems to come up on a daily basis, either at work, with friends, even the hairdresser (believe it or not), so what's the big deal? What is Facebook? And why is everyone talking about it?

Facebook is the latest in Internet Social Networking, the next big thing in a long line of social networks (i.e. classmates.com, friendster, myspace...). It is a community setup on the Internet, where people can come together to connect, to share pictures and links, to discuss similar interests, or just a place to meet other people. That being said, what is it about Facebook that differentiates it from all the others?

My best guess regarding Facebook's fame, would be it's targeted audience and therefore almost by default, it's sense of legitimacy. Unlike some of it's predecessors, Facebook originally (at it's conception in 2004) went out and focused it's attention on targeting college and university students. In fact, it wasn't until 2006 that it decided to became public and open it's doors to everyone. That being said, I think that it's original sense of exclusivity and academia, created a perception of trust, which therefore provided that extra bit of motivation for people to join, people who might typically be weary of these types of initiatives.

So Facebook is fun, legitimate, adult skewed...then why isn't everyone on it? I believe George Orwell, said it best in his novel, Nineteen Eighty-Four, with the words "Big Brother is watching you". While Facebook acts as a great medium for networking, it is also a great place to gather millions and millions of data. Everything you could ever want to know about a person, from their favourite movie through to who their friends are, or where they work. Now while people might be okay with sharing this information with their friends or even random strangers, concerns begin to develop when third party corporations start to get involved.

In the end, is Facebook good, is it bad? Only time will tell. My guess is that it probably has another 6 - 12 months before something bigger and better comes out, until then, I say go out there and meet some new people, just remember to be cautious when posting personal information.

Oh...and in case you were wondering...YES I am on Facebook!