I Will Follow
by on April 1st, 2010
filed under On Writing
Social networking sites can be a major time suck (or in my case writer avoidance) but they can also be a way to get to know someone before you actually meet them. You know, in person. Face to face. Like back in the olden days before we all got LinkedIn, followed and friended.
I friend/follow people I actually know, people I find interesting or funny and people who are knowledgeable about subjects I’m interested in.
I unfollow/unfriend people who think they’re funny but are actually rude, people who are vulger or just plain ignorant, people who pimp themselves or their product to the point of annoyance, people who think the minutia of their life is interesting or people who post their status… every… other… minute.
For my own part I try to post comments that will provoke conversation. Sometimes it’s what’s happening in my life or my family’s, something interesting I’ve read or seen, I’ll ask for opinions on a particular subject, or I’ll post something that’s too hilarious not to share.
After a year or so on these sites some funny things have begun to happen. One is that I’ve been recongnized in person by my ’friends’ and ‘followers’. I’ve had people say to me- “I know you. We’re Facebook friends.” or “You look familiar, are you on Twitter?” And poor MrY. One of my friends in real life and on Facebook who’d never met him, recognized MrY at a local donut shop from his picture on my profile. She walked right up to him and asked- “Are you Beth’s husband?” I think it freaked him out a little.
Say what you want about these sites, but they are keeping us connected in surprising ways. I’d love it if you shared your experience with social networking sites good, bad or indifferent.
Here’s a brief update on my adventures in Query Land.
Agent queries sent-61
Requests for a partial-3
Requests for a full-1
No’s-35
Unanswered queries-26
Editors considering my full manuscript-2
Social Not-working Sites
by on March 5th, 2010
filed under Well that's what I think any way...
Just about everyone I know is on some kind of social networking site including both my parents & my mother-in-law. They’re a great way to find long lost friends, reconnect with former coworkers, look up classmates and meet new people.
You can have whole conversations with people you’ve never met (and likely won’t), network, get the latest news or celebrity gossip, and even play DJ blipping your favorite songs. (http://blip.fm)
But as one family discovered the immediacy of these sites can be way too immediate.
Twins Angela & Maryanne woke up on their 20th birthday and signed onto theirFacebook profiles anxious to see who remembered their birthdays. Instead they were greeted with messages of “RIP Bobby” (their brother) and “RIP Chris” (a friend of their brother’s) all over their newsfeeds.
As you can imagine the girls were shocked and confused. Right away they called their brother but he didn’t answer his phone.
Then they called their mother who hadn’t received any notice from the police but she did confirm that Bobby had been with his friend Chris the night before. When their mother phoned the police, she was informed that her son, Bobby, had died in a car accident which also took the life of his friend, Chris and a third teenage passenger.
You can read more about this tragedy here- http://mashable.com/2010/02/08/facebook-brother-death/
I’ve had similar experiences although not to such a tragic degree and it makes me wonder, have these sites changed the way we communicate with each other? Instead of a personal phone call or formal invitation people are delivering their news in 140-character tweets, changing their Facebook status, sending e-vites and answering the innocent question ‘What’s on your mind?’ with bombshell announcements.
Have these sites helped or hindered social communication? And does everybody who friends you really need to know what you had for breakfast? What do you think?
My condolences to the families on the loss of their loved ones. No one should have to hear news like this in such a graphically public way.
myspace, facebook, myspace, facebook…?
by on August 25th, 2008
filed under Undecided
I have a Myspace. 
I don’t use it much. Really it’s all I can do to keep up with my email, yahoo groups and this blog.
But I have one. I’m not really sure how I did it. I’m not really sure how to work it. And when someone “friends” me I’m not sure how to “friend” them back. I’ve heard the arguements about myspace vs facebook (and there’s a new one out there but I can’t remember what it’s called) and how one is better than the other. I’m not sure how to judge that unless one is easier for me to use than the other. But I’m not likely to find that out because I already have a myspace and I’m too busy (lazy) to check out Facebook.
So I ask you… Myspace or Facebook?
