Facebook

I read an article last week observing that Facebook is now five years old. Some Harvard 19-year-old started the social networking site at that time, and evidently more than 1000 of his fellow campus-mates set up their accounts and profiles within the first 24 hours. Is anybody surprised that this young man is now a billionaire? I'm not. It's an interesting story, and here is the version I read if anybody is interested:

http://www.cnn.com/2009/TECH/02/04/facebook.anniversary/?iref=mpstoryview

I set up my own account back in May, mainly because a number of invites were popping up in my numerous emails from people from who were almost forgotten by me. A few of them were people I'd met traveling years ago, and no doubt I ended up getting invites from them because there is a feature that pulls one's email addresses and automatically sends invitations, and not because they one day wondered "Hey! What happened to that American dude I met back in...?"
I've found myself much more active on it recently, though not in the everyday activity-baring way that many seem to engage. What I cannot deny is that it is probably one of the greatest inventions in the last five years, in particular because it gives users the opportunity to re-kindle old friendships in a way that never existed before. Now I know that MySpace exists, as does email, but Facebook, for technical reasons that are beyond my ability to explain, seems to make reaching out and pulling old relations back into the fold very simple. There are drawbacks though. One individual who I work with and is more tech-savvy than most has stated his reluctance to sign up for almost the same reasons. He doesn't want people from the past to be able to find him. Hmmm...
Facebook gained quite a publicity push last year during the Obama campaign because it was one of many tools he used to reach out to that younger generation of disinterested voters that I'm told includes me. Funny thing about that is I've often wondered how that equates with our Tribe. I've always thought of Grand Ronde On-Line as being the premier independent internet website for Tribal members, and really, it is. But there are quite a lot of Tribal members on Facebook I've noticed, and here is the really interesting observation, a lot of them are people whom are not regular visitors to GROL, in fact some of them aren't even on that website at all. I can't really explain that, other than it may be purely a generational preference. Facebook allows for more visuals, like photos and albums, plus numerous gimmicks, like electronic pokes, smiles, wedgies, causes, and even a wave for Oregon Ducks Football fans. There is a playfulness that people seem to like.
My brother has already started a Facebook club for Grand Ronde Tribal members. A few have joined, and I'm sure others will later. I look forward to that.