Friday, July 18, 2008

Thing #18 - MySpace or Yours?

I'll say a few things about MySpace, but not a lot. MySpace, despite its popularity, hurts my eyes (the sites I see aren't clean, slick, or simple). I like that it's given the record industry a run for its money, and that it's brought people together, but its user interface, search features, and ultra-customizability (too bad no feature says "The wallpaper, automatically-glaring music, or flashing image you are about to install will drive people away!"). It is useful for music artists, but the level of interaction, basically messages left on a "wall," seems to be about all there is.

As for Facebook...

Wow, this one required zero work to set up; I've had this puppy done for a long time: Here's my Facebook profile!

I use Facebook for my personal life - I went to high school in Indonesia, so I know people from many regions, and Facebook makes it easy to reconnect and stay connected. I obsessively check my feed; I update my status through Twitter several times a day, and I can spend hours poring over others' friend lists and Walls.

I think we as educators need to know about the trends in social networking because they're followed by our students. I'm not on a school-based network on Facebook (I think wikis are a better way to collaborate professionally). I might track students on one of these sites, though. Maybe principals can set up their Friends lists with all students!

The biggest thing I've learned through using Facebook is that the Internet (and especially Web 2.0) really does shrink the world. People who live 13,000 miles away can feel like they live next door to each other. I love that! Also, I've been really interested to see what third-party apps are out there. I don't want to install many on my page, but I love that companies let their APIs "loose," and people come back with some great stuff!

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