Dominica May

Like my husband, I’m a bit sick of having to constantly join different social networking sites, continually repeating myself when creating the ever-new and ever-the-same profile. We met on OkCupid, which is a rather small “social networking” type web site compared to the likes of MySpace, Facebook and even Orkut (which is Google’s contribution to social networking). I have profiles on all of these, plus others that I can’t even be bothered naming because I don’t even go there anyway.

Facebook is the most recent social networking site I have signed up to, and I think I’m slowly becoming addicted to it. I only signed up to MySpace because it was the only way to get in touch with some people I haven’t seen or spoken to in years, but it’s so poorly designed, I prefer not to go there. Facebook, on the other hand, is far better designed, particularly with the applications, and also in that you can’t modify the style of the page. I kind of got sick of opening profiles on MySpace and not being able to read anything because people want to use external sites to modify the look to make it more “personal” – you guys aren’t web designers; it looks crap.

I’ve been busy over the past few days personalising my Facebook profile, which can’t be viewed unless you’re registered and a) in my friends network or b) in the Australia network. Another thing I like about Facebook is that it doesn’t seem to be as much about getting as many friends as you can, even if you’ve never met the person, as MySpace is. In my friend network of 26, I have met all but 4 in person, and of those 4, I’ve at least spoken to them online or in emails. I point this out also because I’m not posting the link to my profile because I want people I don’t know to add me to their network, but in case there are people I do know on there who wish to add me, or if people I know aren’t already members, know where to find me.

Finally, a social networking site I can respect.