Let’s face the book online! Let’s use it- the facebook!

Till the start of 2009, I was not a fan of social networking sites and somewhat loathed the idea lest of using it frequently. However, I have been a user of facebook since 2006, the time when it was only thrown open to people with US/UK university email addresses. Over the past 3 years, got linked to circa 150 friends, Was an infrequent user that time, but now I have started using it on a regular basis. Association with so many people is the first reason. Not only friends but family cousins, relatives too are amongst my friends list and the new privacy settings allows me to keep a better tab on what is public and what is private! I can classify my friends into various groups, like school friends, college friends, relatives etc. and choosing what picture or update to share with what group of friend.

Secondly, it's easy to access. Though 3G still few months away, the mobile version provides a good interface on my 3 year old N-70 (with non-upgradeable s/w, as I bought it locked) on GPRS connection.

I am not into applications and stuff, so I stick to status updates, posts on walls, photo tagging and sharing, family groups, event RSVPs, pokes etc. which either come to me through email as updates or under live feed when I open the website.

Thirdly, I like the fact that it's outlay is neat and precise especially when privacy and "who can contact you" matters, come into picture. Just like many, am not the sort who would want to spend hours on it, but whatever 20-30 minutes I spend, gets refreshed after seeing so many updates from your close friends/family members and does make you feel that you are not alone and all your friends and relatives are not far away.

Finally, it's a good sharing and storing platform for hundreds (if not thousands!!!) pictures one takes with their small but more than capable digi-cams these days.

In my view, it's not a bad idea to get connected and face people online! So folks who still try to resist this virtual world, all I say is at least try and use it in moderation.No harm :)