TimGilbreath.com

A great article I found (albeit from last year) that goes into detail about managing Facebook’s plethora of privacy settings. With privacy on Facebook topping many news sites such as CNN and CNET, I thought this was fairly relevant

http://www.allfacebook.com/2009/02/facebook-privacy/

Social media is THE internet buzzword nowadays, especially if you’re in the Web Development business as I am; user-generated, dynamic web content is truly the wave of the present, as well as the future.  At the top of the pile of trendy Web 2.0 application names such as Digg, Del.ic.iou.us, and MySpace, are the two current kings of social media; Twitter and Facebook.

Being a long-time user of MySpace, I already knew what to expect with Facebook, as they fall in the same category; personal spaces on the web that allow you to share news, photos and more with friends and family around the country or around the world.  A novel idea, the founders of both MySpace AND Facebook made it big when they released these sites to the world.  The growth spurt of Facebook users alone surpasses any other media in history to date, including radio and TV.

Facebook grew on me, and grew on me quick.  Although I was a power-user of MySpace, it was getting to be too much, as far as how much it throws at you.  Users are allowed to style their pages however they like, which is the downfall of the site as much as it is a perk.  It’s common to see pages so heavy in graphics and music that they take forever to load; one family member of mine in particlar had a profile that I couldn’t even visit due to the amount of media on his page.

Then, enter Facebook……accomplishing the same goals as set out by MySpace, but in a much cleaner and faster-loading format.  I consider Facebook an “adult” version of MySpace.  The site doesn’t allow modifying the look and feel of the site, but all of the other customization options are there.  I ditched MySpace and became a Facebook fanboy.

Finally, Twitter enters the equation.  If there’s one up-and-coming technology that rivals Facebook, it’s Twitter.  This small, fast-loading application allows you to update friends, family, or anyone else for that matter as to your current status, or any news you feel is important enough to share.  The beauty of Twitter is that you’re only allowed a certain number of characters (180 if I’m not mistaken) to post, so noone is bogged down with long, drawn out explanations or statuses.  Celebrities use Twitter too, and this gives stalking your favorite star a little easier and a more personal touch  (Obviously I’m joking, don’t stalk celebrities on Twitter, they won’t appreciate it as much as you think).

As neat as Twitter is, it won’t replace my Facebook anytime soon, as it doesn’t accomplish a tenth of what I can do with Facebook.  Twitter does have an image component (a separate application though, it seems), but nothing beats opening Facebook and having video, audio, and text capabilities out of the box.  And, those celebrities we talked about earlier?  Although they ARE there, they’re hard to find….only a handful have been proven to be real, apparently a favorite pastime of Twitterers (this is a real word, believe it or not) is to emulate a celebrity and put up a faux Twitter profile.  This doesn’t fool many people anymore, and there are even sites that outline which celebrities have real Twitter accounts, and which ones have been deemed to be imposters.

So, while Twitter is nice, I’ll just keep Facebook.  I’m not doing both, since I tried that before, and that’s why I dropped MySpace to begin with!