In the Twittersphere, my tweeps are always doggin’ on Facebook, but I’m not giving up on it just yet.  Here’s why:

First, and most importantly to me, Facebook has highly customizable privacy options. With Facebook, I can choose to make my profile viewable only by my friends and not the public.  Beyond that, I can choose exactly which friends get to see each part of my profile.  For example, I can (and do) restrict my Facebook “friends” who aren’t really my friends from seeing the intimate day-in-day out details of my life.  I have different privacy setting for my notes, status updates, links, contact info, photos and videos (and even different privacy settings for each photo album and video).  Facebook gets an A+ in my book for privacy.

Second, it requires very little of my time because I use it as an aggregator. In other words, I don’t have to create any new Facebook content.  It’s all imported automatically.  For example, my status updates come from Twitter.  My notes are automatically imported from my WordPress blog.  Videos I edit for YouTube videos come in as links.  You get the point.  With almost no effort, I can have all my social media content come under one umbrella.  All I have to do is check in once a day for comments and messages.

Third, the expandability of Facebook via apps is a great idea. At times, it’s highly annoying (as when I get 10 Farm Town requests a day), but it’s still a great concept.  One of my favorites is Visual Bookshelf app, which lets me share which books I’ve been reading and even write reviews… or the My Band app, which lets me stream my own music right from my profile.

All that being said, I still know that Facebook is by no means perfect. I find the banality of the conversations going on there nothing short of mind-numbing.  Contrast that with Twitter, which (at least among my followers) focuses on my professional interests like photography, graphic design, worship leading, etc.  That’s why I read every Twitter update but hardly ever dredge through Facebook content.  I guess that’s because I’m more of a left-brained person, I’m more interested in concepts (“Canon released the 7D to rave reviews”) than the details of people’s lives (“Having pancakes for breakfast again…”).

I guess social networks are what you make of them. The person who uses them to connect with old high school friends is going to have a much different experience than the person who uses them for professional networking.  Whatever your preference, you can find it.  So, make the most of it, and don’t give up on Facebook yet!  I haven’t!

Posted in: Cool Stuff, Random Rants