/personal

I’m really bad at greeting people who I’m not sure will recognize me. It’s silly — I mean, what’s the harm in greeting someone, even if they don’t recall you? I think this bad habit comes from either being Finnish, or being a geek. Or from the sorry combination of both.

Anyway. I’ve realized Facebook works quite nicely as an icebreaker. I can add someone I hardly know, who I’ve talked to ten years ago, who I wouldn’t dare to say “hi” to on a street, and if they add me in return, I know they recognize who I am. If they don’t, nothing happens. No humiliating “who’s that freaking unknown guy greeting me on the street” looks. Perfect for geeks.

In addition, I’ve found the Facebook poking feature to be an even more subtle version of the same. If you really, really are not sure about someone being the person you’re looking for, you can first “poke” them. If they return the poke, then ask to add them as friends.

And PS, if you still don’t “get Facebook”, don’t worry. Nobody does. You don’t have to join in.

Every social app/site/service requires you to make a decision, whether implicit or explicit, of who to include in the network you’re modeling with the service in question. Personally I find myself feeling uneasy when I start using a new service and have not decided what I use it for and who I will mark as “friends”.

Facebook has truly landed in Finland in the last weeks and I’ve had to tackle this problem once again. After contemplating for a while, I decided on how to use Facebook: from now on I’ll add anyone I’ve ever met or corresponded with to my list of friends, with the aim of creating a model of all the people I’ve been in touch with. Whether we’re friends IRL or not. A bit like an address book, with relationships. And faces.

Seems like some other people are coming to the same conclusion, although from different starting points.