Facebook

When I was on Cape Cod, gosh, when was that? it feels like six months ago, I got a zillion Facebook requests and had very little internet accessibility. (Yes, I am a professional writer and THAT is a sentence.)
Ladies (and Joke and Scott and Neil): I cannot fathom Facebook, and I'm not sure I have the energy to learn it all.
I think I learned how to be "friends" with people and I know I've got some "hatching eggs" but
for those of you who have "written on my wall" or sent me messages or given me a bunch of
"yellow roses" (Jen on the edge) I need to tell you that I don't have the mental capacity to return these favors. And I'm awfully sorry if I didn't "confirm" you and something bad happened as a result.

I twit, I email, I blog and now I am writing (not terribly often) for Blogher - the latter involved learning a new format and treading water through a conference call. (Treading water is a joke because my Editor took part in that call from her poolside.)

So - if I don't return your flowers, write on your wall or become friends with someone you have suggested I become "friends" with, please don't take it personally. Please understand that I
am something of an internet sham, as my episode with flickr (wherein I was unable to "merge" my flickr account with my new Yahoo ID and lost the flickr account) testifies to.

The same holds true for those kind people who invited me to Plurk, join a "Momtourage," and play on Kwippy. I'm not extending my reach any further than I have at this time.

Finally, to the four publicity people who insist on sending me releases on the very latest in games, toys, school supplies and baby care items: my boys are in High School. I don't write about infant seats or lunch boxes. If you four have a fabulous eye cream you are promoting or some kind of terrific treatment for my feet, I'd love to hear about it.



Comments

Anonymous said…
Lordie, I am the same way.

For one thing, I can't remember my Facebook password.

Twittering - did it once 3 months ago.

Kwippy, Plurk?????

WTF!

And Goodreads....I call it the Good Lords - as in Good Lord, someone else wants to "connect" with me on Goodreads. If I had the time to input all the books I read, I wouldn't be reading any books.

My Monday morning rant and thank you for facilitating it.
Stomper Girl said…
Facebook is crap. I'm only on it for the scrabble playing.
Anonymous said…
You can use ping.fm to post to all those sites. You can set it to update the status at Facebook, Myspace and whatnot, and then it also sends the same info to twitter and jaiku and kwippy and a myriad of other sites.

I rarely post at any of them, directly, instead I ping it.
I can get you a code to join, if you'd like.
unmitigated me said…
I am easily the tech-iest (I am not YET a professional writer[but would like to be! famous agents reading] and yes, that's a word) teacher at school and God forbid those people should ever discover Facebook, MySpace, etc. I'd never get a moment's peace.
Miz S said…
I hear you.
KPB said…
But it'd be so much fun to play WordTwist and PathWords with you.
Anonymous said…
Bb, I know how you roll and I'm not at all offended. :-)

I only do the karma and gardening stuff on Facebook because other people send stuff to me.
Anonymous said…
Wow, there is a lot of crap in the web that I don't even have idea of.
I consider myself lucky that with so little knowledge I nevertheless found YOU. Becasue I have no clue about twit, plurk, kwip, or any other TRAP.
sorry
paola
Anonymous said…
You are so gifted. I barely figure out blogging. Dang.
I don't know what half of those things are.

I have a mySpace page because everyone I work with is under 35 and they said I needed one, so I could see all their party pictures.
Yikes, I'm glad I'm not their Mom!

I need someone to teach me how to send a text message on my phone. It takes me to 5 minutes to do one line with 4 misspelled words(did I misspell that?)
Poppy B. said…
It's all a huge time suck.

I do Twitter and enjoy it. Love the brevity. Some people are artists with that 140 character limitation.

Plurk and Kwippy are Twitter wannabes. They're cold medicine applications, i.e., take something great, add one ingredient and market it like crazy. "Let's do Twitter--but add elements of chat! Yay! We're geniuses!"

GoodReads is only OK.

The problem is I don't care what my friends are reading; I care what people with similar tastes are reading. So I prefer LibraryThing. It's also much better for cataloging books.

Which is ::cough cough:: not your problem, dear.
RW said…
I hear you. I am on Facebook to keep track of my children. I much prefer the blogger medium.

I am still trying to get the flickr badge uploaded on my blog. I can't seem to do it and it frustrates me beyond belief.
jordi said…
I'm with Loretta. I do this for a LIVING for heaven's sake. I blog for fun, I read email cuz I gotta and I do NOT want that email about menopause one more time, though it is better than the ones about penis enlargement. I have a decent spam filter and stuff still gets to me, alas. Facebook, MySpace.. been there, did it once, got the t-shirt and am done with all of them. Don't twitter or delicious or any of those. I want to do REAL things some of the time, blogging still seems "real" to me. I DO text, however, other than that I am knitting, or drawing or reading or somethinging with my real hands.
HEATHER said…
Thank gawd I am not the only one who doesn't get the Facebook!
It made me feel so incompetent!
Anonymous said…
There are only just so many hours in the day. And really, who wants to be in constant touch with a million acquaintances? Not I. But I supervise college student employees, and my goodness, all they do ALL DAY LONG is troll the internet looking at lurid pictures of one another. And I thought I was pushing the time-suckage envelope by taking a few minutes to check in on your posts every morning. Not even!

jbhat
Allison said…
Congrats on the Blogher gig! I am a facebook relative newbie-but am trying. It has been nice to catch up with some old college and high school friends. At the same time it is a little sad--I would prefer handwritten letters or to see them in person.
Sarah said…
I too go to Facebook for the word games. The other stuff? Meh.

It IS good for finding people you went to school with. Which is interesting for about one minute. But hey, a minute's a minute.
Amy A. said…
See, I love my facebook. It's the twitter I'm not all sure about. How many times can you write, "I just finished a latte." Because that's about all I'm 'doing right now'. Everything else I do is without a computer handy! I have friends who love it, though, so I will perservere until I get addicted and can't live without it.

P.S. I don't throw sheep or body slam anyone on my facebook page. You should, however, consider looking at the flair. Some of that is FUNNY!
StLmom said…
Have a PR friend with some lovely eye creams and feet treatments and such. We'll get you all hooked up.
MsCellania said…
Ah, the price of success. Everyone wants you.
alice c said…
My children are on Facebook. It is their space - I am not interested in prowling around checking up on what they are doing - I don't want to have nightmares.

There are also privacy issues with Facebook which can be a particular problem in a University environment due to the way that Facebook is designed.

Deep respect to you for all the twittering, plurking and zippy kwippy etc etc. I maxed out just living at the moment.
Anonymous said…
The LAST thing I would want would be high school people finding me. I shudder at the very thought.

That's so 30 years ago.

ErinH
Jennifer said…
I'm on Facebook, I ignore every request sent my way, and I think all my friends and people who I forgot I knew have found me. I rarely remember to sign on anymore, and I never really bother to check up on the friends I have on there. Blogging is much more interesting anyway.
Pretty Things said…
I just discovered Facebook this weekend and am wondering how I'll fit it into Etsy forums, checking my friends on Twitter, writing for three blogs, keeping up with four other "networking" thingees (that I've forgotten the passwords to, come to think of it) - oh yeah, and get work done.