I facebook everyone! (facebook.com)

Member Name: TheWriter

Product:	facebook.com
Date:	04/07/09 (94 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: When you ditch work & go to a rock concert, you can tell all your friends about it

Disadvantages: Your boss will find out you ditched work to go to a rock concert

Facebook is the most subscribed to social networking site and has beaten MySpace, bebo, Hi5 and all the other ones to the top spot. Nearly everyone I know has a Facebook profile.

***Pros***

You can get in touch with old friends and brag about what you're doing now - went skiing in the Alps or climbed Everest etc.

Your information can be made private so that only people you add as a friend can see the information. Its a useful way to get in touch with old friends, work colleagues and family and keep them updated with your life.

Another feature of Facebook is all of the applications: a series of games and widgets that you can add to your profile and amuse yourself with.

This includes superpoke pets. I have a cute little monkey as my pet- but boy, is he high maintenance! I log back in and he's dirty again! and dreaming of playtime! Its a bit like those tamagotchi virtual pets. You choose a pet and feed and clean it regularly. Everytime you clean it etc you gain coins which you can spend in the virtual "store". You can buy things for your pet like accessories, food and even a change of habitat. Then your pet progresses from one level to the next getting bigger.

You can invite your friends to get a pet too and then have playdates with your pet. Aww.

***Cons***

How much time do we as a nation spend online as it is? Playing superpoke Pets and watching inane videos and uploading pictures- is that any way to enjoy life?

The stories you hear about people who put things on their profiles which their boss/spouse/relative saw and were shocked by...I read somewhere a woman found out her partner was cheating because the girl he was cheating with put a half naked picture of herself on his wall!

I also read people are getting into "status wars" where they'll go to extreme lengths to do the wackiest things just so they can put it on their facebook page. For example, John Smith is drinking a milkshake in a dumpster while holding a goldfish (and actually going it because they dont want to be caught out as liers)

Some of the applications are POINTLESS. For example, "Which film character are you?" Who cares? What a compplete waste of time! I ignore these silly requests to fill in a silly questionnaire in order to provide a silly set of answers that have no bearing on reality - and let's face it, even in Facebook Land my friends dont REALLY care if Im most like Carrie or Samantha.

Overall: a good way to keep in touch with friends, the best aspect being the privacy levels are quite high so you can hide pictures and information from prying eyes. Just be careful who you add as a friend!

Summary: Stalkers, too much info on you online, its not the real world!