Facebook Counts

On October 14, 2009 my 11 year old son had surgery to correct strabismus, a surgery he had when he was five years old. Sometimes the surgery has to be redone, which is what happened here. We were concerned, as all surgeries carry some risk, but Andrew was a trooper, even cracking a joke or two before they lend him down the hall to the surgery room. After examining him today at his post-op appointment, his doctor was very pleased with the results of the surgery. As the day progresses, he continues to heal and even played some piano with an icepack covering both of his eyes.

I often wonder about the difference between facebook and twitter as social tools and this provided an opportunity to see how each on-line community reacted to this story. Yesterday before his surgery I posted two messages one on facebook, and another one on twitter. Returning the message on twitter several times throughout the day to catch people on different time zones. I have 158 friends on facebook and 252 followers on twitter.

I received over 70 email messages or post on my wall inquiring about and sending get well wishes to my son from facebook. Some facebook friends I have not met in person were the first to comment. On twitter, I received 2 returns and three good wishes to pass on to my son. Hmmm, interesting don't you think?

What kind of Twitter Bug am I?

On February 1, 2009 I wrote “How Many Friends Do we Need Anyway” the subject is on social networks. At that writing, I was new to Twitter and pondering what part this new tool would play in my life.

I found that people use twitter for a variety of reasons including but not limited to promoting websites, to sell products, to connect with like-minded people, and to spout out random bits of information. This is all good. I like that we live in a society that allows people have the freedom to express and be involve in this media in whatever way they feel comfortable.

Moreover, I like that I can pick and choose who follow my tweets. Generally the people I allow to following my tweets are people who I would in “real life” like to meet. What I am looking for in their tweets is authenticity and something that reveals a bit about them. I also like to read tweets that provide links that lead me to subjects that interests me. Although, I have been known to pick a random person because of something they have posted and follow that for a bit just to see what type of pearl they may expose.

I am less concerned about how many followers I have but rather how many people I can have conversations with that relate to our shared interest. I see my tweets as links connecting a conversation that happen overtime, and my intent is to have these conversations as though we are sitting across from each other drinking tea.

How Many Friends Do We Need Anyway?

A couple of weeks ago I was listening to Holly, a contestant winner of “Almighty” on a local radio station. She had to undertake a number of tasks to collect $25,000. One of her tasks was to eliminate over 360 friends from her friends list on the social network Facebook and reduce it down to 20. She did it, but at what cost? She got $1,000 to do this task, making her deleted friends worth less than $3.00 each. The question is whether she will keep her friends’ list to the few “real” friends.

This got me thinking: how many friends do we need anyway? People join numerous social networks, Myspace, Facebook, WAYN, and Second Life, to name a few.

I’m not immune to this internet phenomenon, I have a Facebook account, two blogs, and a Twitter account. I’ve helped create Facebook profiles for the techno challenged, and have watched them take baby steps and then leaps and bounds adding friends, applications, photos, all with great confidence. I started my Facebook profile initially to keep in contact with my family members in other cities, and that opened the floodgates to others, long lost friends, old classmates, recent friends and just random people. When I began using Facebook, I made a mental note to myself to keep my friends list to 100 but it is getting increasingly difficult to adhere to it.

I think I need to establish a set of social network friends criteria. Do I set a limit on how large my friends list should be? Do I eliminate people I’ve accepted as friends when more desirable friends ask me to be their friend, and what about family: are they friends for life? Should I explain to friends I’m considering deleting what I’m about to do to them? How do I explain it? How would I characterize and streamline my friends? Should I keep those who are in contact with me on a regular basis, those who seem interested in me personally? What about people who just like to be my friend but never ask me how I am doing, or express any interest after the initial contact? Most of all, in my effort to connect with my friends, my pet peeve is people who don’t answer emails. How many chances do I give them to answer my email before deleting them from my friends list?

What about me? Am I a good friend? I think so. I take interest in my friends, inquiring about their wellbeing, commenting on their wall, emailing them occasionally. But honestly, not all the time. What is the social network friendship protocol? Are these networks really about collecting as many friends as you can? Do they or don’t they operate on the same social rules as “real life” friends? Do other social networks operate on a different basis?

Follow. My new interest is Twitter. I see Twitter surpassing other social networks because it does not require much effort and it is satisfies our need for immediate results. It lets us connect with people who have the same interests, check out their blogs or websites, easy.

It is about networking in a real sense. (see stephen Fry) People you connect with are not called “friends” but rather the relationship is defined as “followers” and “followed.” So what are the rules for relating to your followers? Or those you are following? It can seem like a kind of friendly stalking, but with the consent of the stalked. Or it is possible to remain a “lurker.” Maybe these relationships are more similar to business acquaintance and the more followers the better.

I’ve noticed people can have anywhere in the tens of thousands of followers on Twitter. How do they keep up? Or do they? Do they have an obligation to keep up? The traffic must be an amazing tool for businesses.

Indeed, the world is flat.

How does our affiliation on social networks define who we are?