RIVER BENDER - January 2012

I don't know how popular Twitter and Facebook are to RBmail members. Perhaps someone will respond on RBmail. I have friends tell me how much they love Facebook, but I discovered that most are not on an active email list such as RBmail. RBmail is a social network, which makes me wonder if my friends are suffering from a lack of friends and are attracted to Facebook. Of course, RBmail only has around 500 members but Facebook opens the door to millions of individuals who are looking to meet people and share first-hand information. There's no question that Facebook is a huge success with over 800 million users and growing so perhaps we should look into it because we don't want to be missing out on something good.

Facebook was started in 2004 by Mark Zuckerman in his Harvard dormitory room. They say no website has ever been as successful as Facebook in getting people to voluntarily share intimate details about themselves. They are currently having problems with the FTC over privacy and have agreed to let FTC audit its practices every other year, but Zuckerman feels he can make the world a better place by making it easier for folks to stay connected to things and people they care about and it's working.

That's nice, but businesses have to make money and Facebook makes it by mining all the personal information it collects to help customize the ads it aims at people to promote products and services. It's obviously working, or Facebook wouldn't be preparing to sell stock in an initial public offering (IPO) next year, which could top Google's stock market debut in 2004.

I'm sorry folks; you're going to have to go without me. I have enough social contacts already on email at RBmail, NBCUG, NBCC and Pickin lists. Besides, I'm not fond of getting more ads, even if they're supposed to be something I'm interested in. But if you're definitely into social networking you might want to take a look at a list of over 200 websites at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_social_networking_websites