Questions about MySpace and Facebook

[msagara]

I'm not entirely a luddite. But. Well. MySpace and Facebook? They make me feel bemused and almost entirely incompetent. But I know there are a bunch of people in my flist that probably don't feel either of these, and I thought I would, you know, badger you for helpful advice.

1.* How does it work? I recently created a MySpace account and then ... kind of clicked in circles because I couldn't really figure out how to do anything, or in fact even figure out what I was supposed to do. My oldest son and my friends mock me mercilessly in Facebook, and because I love them, I want to avoid having to kill them, so I haven't yet created an account there.

2. Have you found it helpful?

ETA: * as in rudimentary step-by-step instructions as if you were speaking to your 5 year old dog. Because I in theory understand that you are suppose to build a friends-list there, but cannot figure out how to do this.

Comments

[starlady38.livejournal.com]

I can understand your worries about friending your family on Facebook, and also them mocking you in public, but if you had a page and if you let that page be viewable to people who were not listed as friends, then I don't think it would necessarily be viewed as a negative by random strangers. Inasmuch as Facebook involves social cachet (because cachet is usually between people who at least have heard of each other in real life, I think), the more wall posts and whatnot you have the better you look. But it's just as easy to set your profile only viewable to friends. One of my other favorite authors, Garth Nix, has a Facebook page that seems decently orderly; I think his profile is public-viewable, but I'm not sure. I friended him as a fan, and wrote on his wall telling him I love his books, and as a fan who doesn't want to be weird I've limited my interactions to that--although his use of the Facebook notes feature serves to keep me up to date on his books with less effort on my part. I would say your LJ does a better job of that in your sphere, though.

Can you tell I'm pushing for Facebook? Seriously, MySpace is full of malware because it's so damn easy to hack people's pages, especially those of relatively famous people. And the interface is awful. For me Facebook isn't about "doing" anything other than keeping in touch with and finding people, and it's a very efficient engine for doing that.

[msagara.livejournal.com]

I can understand your worries about friending your family on Facebook, and also them mocking you in public

This is one of those things that is not so much worry as certainty *wry g*. I am, however, somewhat used to this -- but I often think of it as the place my son hangs out and interacts with my friends. Although it's beginning to sound like, of the two, it would be less cumbersome.