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

[janni.livejournal.com]

The way I started friending people on myspace and facebook was to go onto lj and say "here's where my myspace and facebook are" so that they could find me. :-)

I don't do much on myspace beyond friend people back--I have links there back to my lj, mostly. Facebook is another matter--because on facebook, you can play Scrabble with people. :-)

[desayunoencama.livejournal.com]

Not to mention playing Prolific (an online boggle game) on Facebook!

The biggest difference between Myspace and Facebook profiles is that Myspace ones are public, whereas people need to friend you (or be poked by you) before you can see their profile.

So it works to be better networking among people you actually know, and then you can sort of cross-reference by people they all know in common who you might conceivably know or want to know.

So you will probably network better among other-writers (or other areas of your life, mostly family) rather than readers, per se, on Facebook, although there are also lots of groups which one can join and participate and thereby come to the attention of readers.

[lianthe.livejournal.com]

Your statement about the difference between MySpace and Facebook is not ENTIRELY accurate. But the spirit is true enough... the biggest difference between the two in terms of profile viewability is that you MUST be a member of Facebook to see ANY profiles. This is not always the case with MySpace. On MySpace you can have a profile that is viewable by anyone on the internet, signed into MySpace or not.

You CAN however, have a public profile on Facebook that all other Facebook users can see, whether you are friended or not. Just as you can, on both Facebook and MySpace, have profiles that are friend-viewable only. On Facebook you can actually set yourself to have a limited-view profile, so that even people you have friended cannot see your entire profile. Facebook has more privacy filters that way, which I appreciated. I do wish though that you did not have to be a Facebook member to view public albums. It is annoying when you want to share photos with non-Facebook members.

[jennifer-j-s.livejournal.com]

Like me!

[janni.livejournal.com]

Although given how often this has meant I get trounced in Scrabble, maybe not the best strategy after all. :-)

[jennifer-j-s.livejournal.com]

Oh, did I beat you again?