My usual routine after getting home is to turn on the PC and log into Facebook. What I tell myself will be a quick five-minute glance eventually ends up being hours of wasted time discovering what flavour of Ben & Jerry's ice cream my friends are currently eating, or what they think of Cheryl Cole's latest outfit on The X Factor. Maybe it's not that entertaining, but it's certainly addictive.
There is always that anticipation when logging on "are there any new comments?" or "do I have a friend request?" - even though, a lot of the time, such requests are from people I probably don't even know. So why is everyone on it?
Years ago, in my parents' generation, they had no way of keeping in touch with everyone they met, unless they wanted to sit for countless hours on their landlines, working up massive phone bills just so they could ask so-and-so what they thought of Coronation Street tonight.
When school was over it was literally OVER. Most of the people my parents went to school with probably never saw a lot of their fellow pupils again until Friends Reunited came along. Speaking of which, what ever happened to that site? Surely it can't still exist? Who needs it anymore?
As for me, I have just about every person I've ever been friends with from nursery through to university on my "friends list". Just this year a girl I hadn't seen since junior school, at which I was best friends with back in the 90s, added me on Facebook after discovering me in the "Humberstone Junior School" group and immediately suggested we meet up some time (it never happened). It was nice to see what she'd gotten up to, and like a lot of people I went to school with, she'd popped a baby out and is now living on benefits. Bless.
Back in the day (aka 2005-2006) another social networking site was all the rage - MySpace. If you didn't have MySpace you may as well have not existed. There was a period where my friends would be on there all the time, posting bulletins, editing HTML to make their profiles look snazzy and relevant, and filling out their "about me" sections to prove they weren't just some friendless nerd from maths class, but rather a rebellious teen with a whole "life" outside of school. But what happened? At around late 2007 people were beginning to abandon MySpace for the more popular Facebook. Bulletins became less and less frequent, the backgrounds in people's profiles became little more than little red x's in the top left corner as they were no longer using their photobuckets and imageshack accounts to host the images they wanted displayed.
As you can see, the last comment I got from an actual friend on MySpace was well over a year ago, and even that person was only communicating via the site because they didn't want to conform to this new Facebook generation. She did, though, eventually.A lot of people didn't make the Facebook switch because they preferred the site, it was more because all their friends had moved over there and there was no longer anyone to communicate with on MySpace. What's the point in continuing use with a social network site that people no longer use? It's like sitting in an empty room listening to a party going on next door, wondering why no one is around and why no one's talking to you. Eventually you have to get up and make the trip to the neighbour's and join in with the antics.
This screenshot, from my own Facebook, is a sharp contrast to a screenshot I might make from my MySpace welcome page. There are several notifications here from various people I know. If I were to log into MySpace it would be the virtual equivalent to wandering into a desert - dead and lifeless. There's no longer any anticipation when logging onto that website.So what was the initial attraction? Facebook didn't allow its users to create elaborate, HTML-heavy profiles or paste YouTube codes onto your main page. But maybe this was a good thing? I for one soon grew tired of spending hours messing around with codes on MySpace just to make my profile look good. On Facebook you didn't need to do this.
In short, Facebook was just a far simpler site to use. Its features were more relevant than MySpace's and it even had other boredom-busting benefits, such as "applications". A user could sit on Facebook and play old-skool SNES games, or create virtual environments on 'Farmville'. Not only that but you could keep in regular contact with friends without having to do anything, simply by updating your status or reading theirs.
Poor old MySpace eventually cottoned on to this and tried its very best to replicate Facebook as best it could - introducing its own status and applications features, but alas, it was too late - the shift had already been made by the majority of people and now anyone that uses MySpace just looks like a saddo that refuses to move on.
This does beg the question though, what will become of Facebook? Will it wither and die a slow, painful death like its inferior cousin? Will, one day, people decide that a new website is even better and make another shift? Or will it continue to add new features to keep up with the demand of its users? Only time will tell.
Already there seems to be a new rival for Facebook...
Yes, Twitter. So what new and exciting features does Twitter have for its users? Well, this is the most surprising thing - it actually has LESS features than both Facebook AND MySpace. In general it's like having a Facebook profile that is limited to just statuses. The term "micro-blogging" was coined for this new means of communication. So is less more? Who knows. What is different is that with Twitter you can instantly connect to anyone you like. There is no need to send a friend request, as Twitter is all about "following" someone. There's no wait to be accepted, you simply click follow and that's it; instant, real-time updates from whomever you should choose to follow. The more interesting aspect of Twitter is that you can actually follow your favourite celebrities. As you can see from my screenshot I'm following the popular comedian, Jimmy Carr and two "YouTube celebrities". Sometimes I may get the benefit of seeing what Stephen Fry is having for dinner, or what the latest sexual innuendos are between Alan Carr and Gok Wan. Exciting? Maybe not, but that's not what I'm getting at - for on Twitter you may be lucky enough to get a reply back from your favourite celebrities. I was mighty proud of the fact I have been Tweeted twice by the Ministry of Sound's "Cut Up Boys" - the guys responsible for the annual 'Mash Up Mix' cds. Celebrities they may not be, but they are famous to those of us who appreciate dance and house music and purchase their cds year by year. What was more exciting was when they decided I'd be one of the few people they decided to follow themselves. How thrilling it was to know that The Cut Up Boys knew of my existence and what was going on in my life. It really did make my day. I felt like one of their inner circle and can only imagine what people who get Tweets from the likes of Rihanna, Russell Brand, Stephen Fry and Demi Moore must feel.I know that if I just keep Tweeting Russell Brand enough eventually, one day, he might reply and then my life will well and truly be complete. In the meantime, though, I'm being followed by Danyl Johnson from the X-Factor, and was 'DM'd' by Caprice Crane which also made my day.
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