Happy Birthday, Facebook!

According to this morning’s trending topics, today is Facebook’s 6th birthday! It seems that lately there has been a rash of theme photo weeks.

About a month ago there was “use-a-photo-of-yourself-as-a-kid” week. I didn’t participate because I’m old enough that my baby pictures are in this medium called “film”! You may have heard of it. My mother doesn’t know how to use a scanner and I’m too lazy to scan hundreds of old photos. It’s too bad I didn’t participate that week because I was much cuter as a child than I am now.

Next came “use-a-wedding-photo” week. I’m not married and I’m ok with it. I certainly don’t have a problem with marriage as an institution. It’s too bad that my parents (and other couples their age) don’t have Facebook or know how to use scanners, because there was some pretty scary hair in the 70s. That week would have produced some wicked funny pictures!

Most recently there was “use-a-celebrity-you-have-convinced-yourself-you-look-like” week. I couldn’t think of anyone that I looked like, no matter how hard I stretched my imagination. I got a kick out of other people’s choices, however. Some were spot on, while others? Not so much. My pride was a little hurt that I none of my friends made a suggestion of an attractive celebrity that I looked like, but I got over it.

So, what if someone died and made me Queen of Facebook? I would make “use-yourself-with-your-favorite-baseball-hat-picture” week since that’s what I‘ve been using since I joined FB about two years ago.

Or an even better suggestion would be “use-a-picure-of-yourself” week. What a thought! Right now, if a stranger hacked into my account and viewed my newsfeed, he or she would marvel at my friend Sue who appears to be two people, one male and one female, who are joined at the hip! Then there is my friend, Nate, who is a 9 month old girl! The stranger would fall off his or her chair to discover that I am friends with a 30 week-old fetus, Justine! How do I maintain a friendship with someone in the womb? It’s a modern-day medical miracle!

Now, don’t get me wrong. I don’t think there is anything wrong with being proud to be in a relationship, or being an expectant parent, or having cute children. That’s great, but that’s what the photo albums are for. Your profile picture should be a picture of YOU!

Anyway, happy birthday, Facebook. May you continue to bring me friends’ updates for years to come. Or at least until all my friends are on Twitter!

Twitter and the Technophobe

A few months ago I watched a coworker squint at a cellphone in an ill-fated attempt to send a picture message. He finally gave up and handed the phone to a younger member of our lunch table. I vowed right then that no matter how old I got, I wouldn’t get shut out of new technology.

That night I was watching SportsCenter and the episode featured “tweets” by various athletes. I had been hearing about this whole “Twitter” thing, but didn’t know anyone personally who was into it. I pulled up Google on my Macbook Pro which, much to my cat’s chagrin, is almost permanently attached to my lap, and looked up “Twitter.” I was confused and a little overwhelmed at first. I was about to shut the window and give up, when I realized that this was just the way to tackle my technophobia. I dug around for a while and kind of got a feel for it, but was somewhat discouraged by the lack of “this is how you tweet” instruction. I’m a very “by-the-book” type person so the freeform environment of Twitter was not my cup of tea. I signed up for an account and then surfed over to the library’s website and put a few books about Twitter on hold. This made me feel a little better. Hope, in the form of step-by-step directions, was on the way!

Over the course of the next few days while I wanted for my library books to arrive, I found some interesting news outlets to follow (such as Boston.com and NZHerald) as well as a plethora of fellow Red Sox fans (Bill Simmons!). I didn’t write any Tweets because I had no followers to read them. I was content to use it only as a information gathering service. The true power of this came to light during Thanksgiving.

I was at a family get together and I dug my iPod out of my pocket to send some “Happy Thanksgiving” emails. When I was done, I booted up Echofon and the first Tweet I read was the New Zealand Herald telling me about Tiger Woods’ car crash! Needless to say, my family and I were all talking about it that evening as information began trickling in. This made me realize what a powerful tool this newfangled Twitter could be.

Also during Thanksgiving weekend I got my first followers! True, most of them were the Twitter equivalent of junk-mailers just looking for followers, but one of them was Jerry Remy! I immediately followed him back. I also found more people to follow. I even wrote some tweets!

Fast forward about two months to the present. I’ve since read Twitter for Dummies and The Twitter Book. (Both were helpful, but nothing compares to just jumping in and getting started.) I’ve collected over 100 followings and 30 followers. I’ve written over 350 Tweets and had some really great conversations with people as far away as Wales and New Zealand! This positive experience with Twitter was really what inspired me to tackle another modern-day invention: the blog. (Ok, so Julie and Julia helped too!)

I haven’t been able to get any of my coworkers on Twitter, but I’ll keep trying!