I guess the Facebook revolution has caught up with me. Recently a bunch of old friends started adding me to their Facebook friends' list. That got me back on the site to browse these lists and I started adding friends myself. Once I added one, I needed to add more. It's like an arms race.

What? My friends have 50 friends while I only have 5?? Unacceptable! I need to add more....

This follows right in line with how I interact with social networking sites like Facebook, MySpace, LinkedIn, even Friendster. Check em out, ignore, add a bunch of people, then ignore forever.

First impressions - I create a bare bones profile and make it restrictive. I don't want/need more spam from yet-another-upstart social site. I add a few people, probably the same ones that made me aware of FaceMyLinkedFriendster. Ignore profile for months.

Second impressions - My second encounter with a social site is when some random friends find me online. This usually leads to a rash of friends requests as my profile is added from friend-to-friend. I guess this would be the viral nature of social networking in action. After 2 or 3 of these new friends requests, my interest in the site is piqued again. Usually the interest revolves a sick need to gather virtual friends. Adding friends to my profile becomes a mini-game in my head. How many "friends" can I find via my virtual circle? During this phase I'll also beef up my profile by making it more open, adding more details about me, etc. I might even add a few widgets or what-not just to play with the platform a bit more.

Then....

Nothing - I'm not a big social networking guy. I have a trail of long abandoned profiles from Friendster to MySpace. Usually, nothing much comes of these social networking profiles. Sometimes I'll rekindle an acquaintance and start some email conversation. That's cool. Most of the time, the profile just wilt and get abandoned.

The one social networking site that might have personal value to me is LinkedIn. They don't ask for very much and there isn't anything to really keep you on the site, so I actually feel like I'm keeping up with what is expected of me. With the other sites, I feel like if I'm not constantly on the site adding friends, leaving comments on walls, adding cute widgets, etc that I'm not a valuable member of the community. And I wouldn't be. The point of Facebook, MySpace and Friendster was to keep you on the site, increasing their pageviews and thus their revenues. With LinkedIn, the focus is on building a professional network. And pros don't expect (or have the time) to socialize virtually.

On LinkedIn, I feel like a member of the community just for having a profile. On FaceMyFriendster, I feel like an outside because I only have a profile.