I now have another space
OK, so, fine, I joined Facebook, after I said I wouldn’t. It took 25 minutes, the bulk of it taken up by importing contacts.
It appears to be a critical mass thing: it becomes more and more useful as the number of people using it goes up. Which is fine, but I still feel rather ridiculous at the site — a feeling that should be quickly dispelled should I reconnect with long-lost friends.
Most of the site is designed, in my opinion, fairly well. But I am completely baffled by something. When I search in their search field, I get a list of all people matching my search. How do I see their profiles? I am really good at this stuff, and I am completely stymied. I can send friend requests, compose messages, or see their friends. I can find their profiles through Google. But surely there is a way to do it natively. If I haven’t seen the person in 20 years, I might not recognize him or her from a photo.
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March 10th, 2009 at 18h58
Some people set their privacy settings so that their profiles aren’t visible to certain people (people who aren’t in their “network,” people who aren’t their friends, etc.).
March 10th, 2009 at 19h09
Ah. OK. Ridiculous, but OK.
It looks like a little bit more than “some people”, actually. I just went to “Profile Privacy” to see if it is enabled by default. Yeah: you cannot set your visibility to “everyone”, at least from this page.
Goddesses help you if you knew a “John Smith” growing up.
March 10th, 2009 at 20h27
I know it’s irritating, but I’m also glad people can’t see much about me unless I’ve approved them. My picture privacy settings are also at a more private level than most people have have theirs set at.
I actually find Facebook to be pretty frustrating, but I still enjoy the ability to connect there. I’d be hard pressed to find “John Smiths” from my past as well using the limited searching ability. However . . . if John Smith has friends with less common names, I can usually find them through that route. There are enough people on Facebook now that once a new person comes on who attended my high school, jr high school, or whatever, they find another 20 or 30 people that day after finding me and looking at my contact list.
Nice to see you on there anyway as I have such little time for keeping in touch and Facebook offers me some level of keeping up with others for very little effort on my part. Yes, I’m lazy (and very busy).
March 10th, 2009 at 23h28
if John Smith has friends with less common names, I can usually find them through that route
You will grant that this is ridiculous, right?
X help you if everyone you know was named Mohammad Chang. 
March 11th, 2009 at 07h53
Ridiculous, yes . . . and you’re funny.
March 14th, 2009 at 11h38
I just joined facebook as well… I still like myspace better, since that is where I actually met my fiance, but no one’s even on there anymore, it’s crazy!