The word “Unfriend” was recently named “word of the year” by the New Oxford American Dictionary – I kid you not.

Unfriend: verb; to remove someone as a ‘friend’ on a social networking site such as Facebook.

Why do you unfriend?

I’ve been unfriended once or twice – mostly by exes. The unfriend has become a powerful phenomenon. It can bring closure, it can hurt feelings, it can break business deals… Maybe one day it may start a war.

I’ve had friends force me to unfriend their boyfriends/girlfriends after they break-up with them. I sometimes unfriend people to avoid having them show up on the “mutual friends” list. Everyone’s got that weird uncle (on Facebook now).

Why do you unfriend?

Last week, the Wall Street Journal’s Elizabeth Bernstein interviewed me about Facebook and how it affects our relationships and the way we socialize.  I was happy to help, but I’m afraid Elizabeth missed the point of my interview when she wrote “How Facebook Can Ruin Your Friendships.”  Simply put, Facebook has not ruined any of my friendships at all but rather made them stronger.

Elizabeth and I spoke for over an hour about how Facebook has brought me closer to my mom and the role it has inevitably played in my dating life. Instead of presenting a balanced scorecard touting both the good and bad, her piece focused only on the negative aspects we discussed.  Please allow me to share the benefits that she left out of her piece.

Facebook and Mom

My mom is taking belly-dancing classes, playing in a softball league with her work friends, she’s loving the show House and has been going to the theater a lot more lately, according to her Facebook status updates. My mom is not a phone person, so I would have never known these fascinating nuances of her life had it not been for Facebook. She also comments on my pictures with cute little blurbs that show a side of her personality that I don’t often see. She’s say things like, “You’ve been wearing a lot of cut off t-shirts lately. We get it. You’re working out” or “Hungover huh? Take two Advils, drink a lot of water and call me later”.

I also feel that my Facebook updates and pictures give her a glimpse into my life and my personality that she otherwise wouldn’t see. The best part is that shesigns all of her comments with “Mommy Dearest”. My friends now refer to her as that.

Facebook and Dating

I also talked to Elizabeth about a guy I met on my birthday party last month. He came with a friend and left before I could ask for his number but he definitely left an impression on me.  I wondered about him for a few days until one random afternoon I saw his friend request on Facebook. What followed was a mild case of The Facebook crush rush.  You know that feeling when you see the name of that special someone pop up on your notifications with a comment or “like”. I looked through his pictures – I like his style, he travels, he has tasteful pictures, he has a beautiful smile… Then I looked at his profile – he lives in Williamsburg, he likes a lot of the bands I like and he posts funny, clever status updates. Through his digital presence, I got to know things about him that motivated me further to ask him out for a drink… Which I did via Facebook ☺

Elizabeth Missed The Point

I’ve been on Facebook since 2004 and since then it has been a catalyst for love and friendship in my life. Yes, there are some negative things too – at any moment any of us can find ourselves a click away from seeing our ex boyfriend or girlfriend with someone else. That was certainly a worry of mine when I ended a relationship last winter, as my quote points out.

Elizabeth decided to write about the negative, which could have been a great piece had she focused on something more that her not “giving a hoot” about her friend’s updates. Perhaps the article would have been better directed had she known that Facebook provides privacy settings that allow her to block anything she wishes not to read.  Thus, Elizabeth is complaining about something Facebook has already anticipated; her piece cries for an answer that has already been made.

Here’s what she quoted:

“Facebook prolongs the period it takes to get over someone, because you have an open window into their life, whether you want to or not.” Says Yianni Garcia of New York, a consultant who helps companies use social media. “You see their updates, their pictures and their relationship status”. Mr. Garcia, 24, felt the sting of Facebook jealousy personally last spring, after he split up with his boyfriend. For a few weeks, he continued to visit his ex’s Facebook page, scrutinizing his new friends. Then one day he discovered that his former boyfriend has blocked him from accessing his profile.

Why? “He said he’d only ‘unfriended’ me to protect himself, because if someone flirted with me he would feel jealous,” Mr. Garcia says.

She left out how Facebook brought us together in the first place. We met in college. I was a freshman and he was a senior. We never hung out but I always wondered about that sweet blonde guy from the college of communication. Three years later I get a message from him on Facebook regarding an event invite I had forwarded to all of my friends (I don’t do that anymore). One thing lead to another, I moved from Boston to New York, where he lived, we started dating and were together for almost a year – a Facebook romance success story.

The point is that “all this online social networking,” is making us closer rather than pulling us apart.  Facebook has melded seamlessly with modern life and has provided a novel method of expanding the breadth of socialization – it has enriched our ability to remain in touch, record our adventures and, perhaps, learn from the past.  Thus, with an increase in interaction, there is bound to be a slight increase in friction but I’ve never regretted being on Facebook. I love knowing what my friends are eating for lunch and if my friend’s child is taking a long time to brush his teeth, I would probably comment, “good oral hygiene at such a young age?! No wonder little Glen has such a radiant smile”.

I’ve been on Facebook since 2004 (when it was a closed network with only 8 schools… I was a student at BU at the time). I have over 1,000 friends, 98% of which I actually know. Sometimes they  get a bit annoying. Here’s a are the top 10 things I hate people doing on Facebook:

1. Group messages on Facebook that turn into an on-going conversation resulting in tons of messages that do not interest me
2. Same as above but in comment threads
3. Pokes – who pokes anymore… Seriously?
4. Facebook app invites (My mom is a fan of the “how puertorican are you?” app)
5. Friend request from strangers that have no reason to connect or that think Facebook is a dating/sex site
6. Unemployed friends that spend all day on Facebook (I think Facebook has a lot to do with the unemployment rate among young professionals)
7. My friends commenting on my mom’s beach photos
8. The Facebook party promoter/spammer
9. People with Facebook albums titled “me” or “body” or “sexy”… The way to portray yourself on Facebook speaks to your personality and how you see yourself. What are people going to think if you have an album with 60 pictures of you half naked in various “sexy” posses?
10. The ex boyfriend or girlfriend on Facebook (Study: Facebook Increases Jealousy in Relationships)

Best,

I just had a mini panic attack. Where did the Shared Items app go?! Not to worry, It’s called Links now.

Why is it called Links now? I don’t know. Facebook should be spending their development efforts on necessary updates like allowing fan page administrators to send messages to single fans rather than the whole fan base. Or how about having the option of doing limited profiles when you friend someone rather than having to set it up after you friend them, leaving you wondering if you boss saw that video of you drunk on the streets in the 2 minutes before you put her in the limited profiles list. Unlikely, but possible.

A way around that (which I’ve been too lazy to set up) is by setting up Lists. You can assign different privacy settings to each friend List. For example, When I friended my mom, I put her in my “no tagged pics” List to avoid comments like this:

“I see you’ve been drinking a lot this weekend. Drink some water and call me in the morning – Mommy Dearest”

Another Sneaky little Facebook update that my friend Haib just showed me – The new “Like” and “Unlike” button on Posted Items Links. Facebook gone Digg.

Are you a hot mom on Facebook? Email me a clip of your Facebook profile to socialmediaguy@gmail.com or friend me on Facebook to be featured on this months’s “Hot Moms on Facebook” contest. The winner will be determined by comment votes on 9/30/2008.

Join the Hot Moms on Facebook Group

Julie Gladu Hall - Added 9/11/2008

Pamela Leigh Seiple – Added 9/10/2008

Tracy Stopford – Added 9/10/2008 via Adrants

Stacey Watson - Added 9/9/2008

Dolores Garcia – Added 9/9/2008

Joly Parra – Added 9/8/2008

Diana Hendelman – Added 9/8/2008

Lucy Malcolm and I made a bet earlier today – she claimed that Wesllesley (all girls school in the woods) was on Facebook before Boston University (Martin Luther King’s and my alma mater). She also stated that she has been a member of the network since December of 2003. I claimed that BU was among the first 8 schools in the network after Harvard and that Wesllesley came into the network after the first 8.

Results:

thefacebook in April 2004

http://web.archive.org/web/20040403161717/http://www.thefacebook.com/

thefacebook in May 2004

http://web.archive.org/web/20040520144727/http://thefacebook.com/

I was on Facebook at least 1 month before Lucy AND it is clearly impossible for her to have been on Facebook in December of 2003, as she has proudly been claiming since we met. She now owes me $100.

We’ve discussed the idea of creating Facebook groups and pages promoting discussion about clients and their industries. I don’t know about you, but I’m not very active in most of the Facebook groups I belong to. I have a feeling that is the case for most Facebook users so I want to dig deeper into this particular tactic with a relevant case study to see if we could develop it into an effective approach.

Case Study: The Social Mobile Group
The Social Mobile Group serves as a good example of groups done right. Below are the methods they are applying to make this a continuously active and growing community:

1. Rotating Group Officers: Involving people in the content creation and sharing process is essential for a group’s success. The creator of the Social Mobile Group applied a rotating system for group officers in which every three months or so he asks the community for volunteers to help develop the group. These rotating group officers are in charge of posting links for relevant news and articles, inviting friends and interested colleagues, suggesting new ways to push the group forward and generally helping to keep things moving. Since the last change, the group has gained 150 members and it is currently pushing 1,200.

1. Relevant Discussion Topics: Their most recent discussion topic asks members to list good mobile sites and blogs. This topic is a great example of a useful resource for outreach and learning.

1. External Site: I always find groups with external sites to be more legitimate. In this group, they created http://socialmobilegroup.kiwanja.net/, a site that mirrors the Facebook group (a snapshot of the group’s public profile) and provides links to the group on Facebook as well as an external members’ directory.

1. External Member Directory: http://socialmobilegroup.kiwanja.net/members.htm the members’ directory also mirrors the Facebook group and it provides a brief bio, link to Facebook profile, and links to blogs or company sites for all the members who choose to be featured in the directory.

Applying the same social methodology used in the Social Mobile Group for your clients or causes would be an effective tactic to begin positioning them as thought leaders in their space. My first instinct is to go with a Facebook group and, once the conversation is going, explore creating a branded page for a more product or service (or cause) specific conversation. Brainstorm ideas for Facebook group names, editorial process, images and copy when talking about creating a blog for your clients. The external sites for the Facebook group would be a community building supplement of a client’s blog.

About the group: The Social Mobile Group was created by Ken Banks, founder of kiwanja.net, developer of low-cost, sustainable ICT solutions for local, national, and international non-profit organizations. Kiwanja.net developed FrontlineSMS, a free, text messaging application available for download by non-profits through his FrontlineSMS website. His new Facebook group is an attempt to bring together those interested in exploring the potential of mobile for non-profits. He has succeeded in raising awareness for his cause through the group, but what’s most significant in this case is the formation of a growing community discussing all sorts of trends and news. Ken Banks is promoting his site within an ongoing conversation, making his push seem as valuable content within a relevant conversation.

Below is an insightful response from Facebook in regards to groups and fan pages:

Hi Yianni,

Thanks for your email. You may, however, wish to consider creating a Page, since we no longer offer Sponsored Groups. A musical artist, business, or brand can create Facebook Pages to share information, interact with their fans, and create a highly engaging presence plugged into Facebook’s social graph. These Pages are distinct presences, separate from users’ profiles, and optimized for these presences’ needs to communicate, distribute information/content, engage their fans, and capture new audiences virally through their fans’ recommendations to their friends. Facebook Pages are designed to be a media rich, valuable presence solution for any artist, business, or brand that can be integrated seamlessly into the user experience with socially-relevant applications.

To create a Page, please visit http://www.facebook.com/pages/create.php or simply click on the ‘Create a page for your business’ link at the bottom of any Page. You can send the fans of your Page updates about changes you have made to the Page, but they will not see information in their News Feed. We do not provide app or Page design services.

Let us know if you have any further questions.

Thanks for contacting Facebook,

Ryann
Customer Operations
Facebook

Source: http://www.techpresident.com/scrape_plot/facebook 

This is remarkable!

clipped from mashable.com Apply To College From Facebook November 14, 2007 — 04:48 AM PST — by Stan Schroeder — Share This From now on, not only can you spend your college days idling on Facebook, you can even apply to college from Facebook. You can do this through an application called College Planner, which is a tool for student wannabes to research their options and see which colleges their friends are interested in. After you choose the ones you like, you can send your application directly from College Planner. This application is created by Embark, a company specializing in helping youngsters research, choose and apply to colleges and schools. Sounds like a surprisingly useful Facebook app; however, I cringe at the generation of donut-throwing, vampire-biting Facebookheads getting their hands on something like this, and I feel sorry for the folks at colleges who are actually going to have to look through all these applications. [via] Link to This Post:

Facebook Stalker

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6FahBBnfHAQ]

I can be your Facebook Stalker

I can click away the pain

You can’t take my mouse away

Facebook Infomercial

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dHi-ZcvFV_0]

I’m a “Whatever I can get” guy…I just don’t admit it on Facebook