Friends-book

It was only recently that I got active in Friendster and Facebook, as the workload gets lighter by the days.**Fingers crossed, I hope nothing major will come up anytime soon. At least until I hand in my dissertation!**

It was only yesterday that I had the opportunity to look at what Friendster was all about even though the craze started years back. I did a profile check of myself; "member since 2004"?! Wow...one of the early adopters of Friendster?! Haha..

I was merely a dormant member until yesterday. Looking through "my friends", I realised I have 18 friends! Woohoo...I have friends.

Obviously I didn't know who added me but I can only remember clicking "Yes" most of the time for friends request whenever a message pops into my Yahoo Mail account. And am sure I didn't add anyone! Oh! I also had the first snow in Cambridge photo which I must have uploaded when someone asked me to. I just read I had three birthday wishes dated 25 November 2005 and 1 in 2006. Aha! So, somebody did remember my birthday! I still have 5 friends request pending approval, which I must have overlooked, with two dated back to January 2006 and the rest some time early this year. Yay, I am back at speed with technology. Ta da! Now I have added 9 photos of myself and picked a dozen of common friends from my friends' friends to be added into the list.

So what got me into this Friendster frenzy suddenly? Facebook.

It's strange. When I was back in Malaysia in May, I spoke about Facebook. Not many Malaysians know about it. Most of them only knew about Friendster. Almost no one in my course knows about Friendster either except the few Asian students. So I guess Friendster is the network tool for most Asians, as what Facebook is for the Westerners.

I hardly update Facebook either, until recently. I started exploring what it has to offer and was really amazed at what it can do! First of all, Facebook puts my friends into a network e.g Cambridge, Chevening or Malaysians. The simple stuff. Then, I am able to tag photos, meaning people can do more than just viewing the photos. They are able to mouse-over the person's face in the photos that I tagged and the person's name will appear! This is useful when someone wants to make sure if that person in the photo next to me is a common acquaintance, a Jessica Alba or a look-alike! I haven't fully explored Facebook but if I am able to explore these few things in a few minutes, then I think it's quite user-friendly. I feel Facebook is more organised and do smarter things than Friendster.

Facebook vs Friendster

Friendster is too transparent e.g you can even know who viewed your profile. To put it bluntly, Friendster has more kiddie functions. It puzzles me and I am still clueless about the purpose of that function. Is that to make members feel that they are a hot shot and many people are viewing him/her? I just don't get the point.

Nevertheless, I will still update my Friendster account regardless of my preceding comments because that's where my friends from the other side of the globe are. So, that's going to be Friendster and Facebook, or more appropriately, Friends-book, for now. Until they are fully migrated to Facebook, I will keep the account. Moreover, I am little flattered now, after knowing 216 people have viewed my profile in Friendster when I only have 38 friends! Hahahahahahahahahaha.......