So, what happens next? I'm bored already! (facebook.com)

Member Name: thedevilinme

Product:	facebook.com
Date:	12/04/09 (302 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: Keep in touch

Disadvantages: Konnie doesnt want me

My hotmail in-box hasn't been bringing me much good news of late. Today I have been offered an extension on my bank balance and on my penis, and a drug to keep at least one of them in credit, presumably the loan in question to pay for the operation. Well my credit and package are performing above expectation and both were perky when I last looked, so the Viagra and overdraught are not required! There was only one answer to pump the in-box up to a more healthy state - time to join a new social networking site! And as I had heard so much about facebook and people asking for my facebook addy I suppose it made sense to finally take the plunge. My only other venture into these sites was faceparty, but being kicked off for being an 'undesirable' when new management came in, a quite frankly insulting message coming up every time I logged in. It later transpires that the new people didn't want anyone over 25 on their and any men of that age were all labeled pervs and booted off. All my older female friends were also thrown off. But as Groucho said: 'why would I join a club that would have me as a member'!

But, alas, I have been on facebook for a month and I'm bored already, just ten friends on my list so far. The devil would prefer some more women on that list because I like to see natural girls in their bikinis on their holidays or in their back gardens on those photos, my understanding the debauchery that facebook was supposed to be all about if the hype is anything to go by. So if you're willing dooyoo 'tottie' I will send you my email! Seriously though it becomes pretty clear early on that facebook is not a dating site, just a place where friends and family can catch up, and at least it's useful for that. You have to be invited into people's inner sanctums here and so it's not a site to put a pretend pic up and try and see other people naked on webcams or initiate phone sex with working class women. I understand that you need to go to plentyoffish.com for that. Lol.You know who you are.lol. Hell, if you're dumb enough to fall for that one then fair enough. Where facebook is sexy is catching up with old lovers or people you fancied at school or at your old work or university, finally having that conversation you never dare have all those years ago. Yvonne Bull, who was the hottie in my fifth form, was that school girl I had crush on, kindly emailed me back after our first conversation last month, now 40 with child bearing hips and a hubby and no longer the class hottie by any means. It happens to all of us. It's also a good place to seek out those people you fancy right now to see if you can get on better on facebook than you do in real life.

A rumor spread over the internet that facebook wasn't a social networking site as such but a clever way for US intelligence agencies to monitor the general public and so bypass US confidentiality laws. The CIA got irritated by these claims and threatened to sue facebook, claiming it was the CIA that invented social networking sites and profiling, and they should receive some royalties. Indeed the intelligence services say it's the other way around, they using the sites to steal and gather information, a better source of 'intel' than they could ever dream of all in one place:' the patrons even giving us their real names and address and a list of associates we may want to talk to...', said one agent. Defense contractors, including Lockheed Martin and General Dynamics, already do this under the banner of their' homeland defense' remit. They use data mining techniques, scouring personal websites, blogs, social networking sites and internet forums to harvest what we are up to. The systems build profiles on people who are suspected, or might be suspected, or might have met someone who is suspected of being a terrorist, a drug baron, an activist or who is in some other way 'special'. This may explain why the British police arrested those Pakistani nationals over the week and as yet no evidence of terrorism has been found, precognitive policing on a new level. As we are willing to offer our personal details to these sites, nice clear photos of us and our friends and holiday destinations and clubs, is it any wonder they are snooping on them and profiling us all. We know facebook is hackable, only last week a big attack that saw 25, 000 accounts snooped on. Anything can be cracked on-line guys, bank accounts, email accounts or even those online security systems you lock your house down with. To prove it, in 2001, a guy called Raphael Gray, hacked into Bill Gates credit card and bought the billionaire a case of Viagra, sent to the Microsoft owner's house.

There's nothing special about facebook in any way as far as social networking sites go and one of the ugliest front pages around, but perhaps the most honest site in its defense, nearly all the members actually putting their own pics up to build a genuine online profile, and not old ones either, the scourge of all social networking sites. There's been stories were people have been fired from work after their employees have read or seen what they have been up to in their spare time or what they have been saying about their business and you would suspect many employers do their research on these places when employing important people for important jobs now, however sneaky their methods and snooping may be. Manchester Unites latest young sensation was all over the papers with his facebook pics and antics last week before he was famous and one would suspect Sir Alex Ferguson will not be having anymore of that sort of thing going on. It's certainly a way for partners to keep an eye on their other halves. Again, if we are prepared to put our particulars up online then we make ourselves more open to attack, especially from unscrupulous or inquisitive types. One negative to facebook is you get email reminders for just about everything you or your friends do on it if you don't learn to tweak the settings.

You can paste up as many pictures you like and once you have mastered the hopeless picture downloader and you can put those photos in various ordered albums. After you have done your intro and your hopes and dreams the braver (usually the photogenic and cuter ones...) can put up a video of themselves if they so choose. Let's face it, the better looking you look online the more friends and action you are going to get here. It is essentially a popularity contest after all. Some of the vainer types do join this site in the hope of being accepted as a celebrity's friend, which in some cases does happen. Some of the vainer celebrities get a kick out of that on the site. When Ben Adams (boy band drummer) was on Celebrity Big Brother in the New Year he admitted to dating three girls he had met on facebook, that celebrity-member of the public interaction growing every year as the lines become blurred. But, as yet, the gorgeous Konnie Huq has not accepted my request to be her friend. The Group 'Konnie Huq I wanna Fluck', has accepted me. LoL. These celebrities may not be the actual ones, people or journalists pretending to be them so to gather interesting gossip, but you can believe to boost your ego. The BBC has blatantly exploited the celebrity culture on the site and uses it to plug their shows. They also seem obsessed with Twitter of late, the portable version of facebook, free advertising for all. I had never heard of it until the non commercial BBC started plugging it.

It's that commercial aspect to these sites that's generated the most debate of late. We know the intelligence services are covertly exploiting this mass of people and gen in one place so why not big corporations, adverts now allowed on facebook. These ads, like dooyoo, are tailored to you personally, just as they are with Tom Cruise in Minority Report. My homepage is littered with dating and fitness sites and, like all adverts, totally ignored by me. The original valuations of these sites for billions of dollars are based on their potential down the line, and by all reports facebook is making hardly any money at all, those ads still out of the 'eye-line that's the buy-line' and so not much use. So the big question is can facebook survive or will the next must be seen in site come along and facebook become my space, 'Spotify' and Twitter sucking away facebook members like that black hole on Doctor Who...

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