Okay Already… I Joined FaceBook!

I’ll be the first to admit… I fought the system and the system won.  For a few years my friends, peers, colleagues, the guy on the subway… just about everyone told me “you’ve got to be on Facebook!”  I just didn’t see the point in setting up another profile in my life, monitoring another email inbox, and reconnecting with people I must have disconnected from for a reason.

Finally, just last week I finally caved… partly out of curiosity and partly because my wife was having too much fun with her own Facebook account.  Within one week I went from joining to nearly 300 “friends.”  Am I popular guy?  Not necessarily.  It’s just amazing how quickly the list can grow when you scour your high school, college, and fraternity lists for people.

In all seriousness, I did find three pretty cool uses for FaceBook in the first week alone.  In no particular order…

1. I mentioned in my status I was looking for a world class event planner.  Within 48 hours I received over ten referrals.
2. I noticed one of my old fraternity brothers is an e-commerce consultant.  Talk about a perfect person to reconnect with when you run a website for a living.
3. I got some closure on all the people I lost touch with and always wondered… “did they marry, where do they live, do they have kids.”

Do I now manage another email inbox… yes.  Do I sometimes get caught up in surfing for new friends when I should be working… yes.  Was I wrong that FaceBook is a complete waste of time… yes!  So I was wrong and “you”, meaning the world, were right.  Thanks for your understanding.