Metro. Metro. Metro.

Hey ... In case someone who reads this blog isn't my Facebook friend - Metro is on Facebook.

Yea ... I am really excited.

They are here.

And yes you should add them as a friend.

Additionally - as you don't know.  I've been meaning to write a post about all this garbage with Metro considering service cuts due to the budget shortfall.  I am being extremely lazy and have not been able to get around to writing it (sorry), but I'm sure you've read it on every other DC blog.  Though no one is advocating for fare increases as much as I am.

Anyway ... WaPo ran a story over the weekend about Metro's fan page, and decided to quote me (though they didn't inform me that they were doing so) ... needless to say I am quite flattered/excited.  The article is here - you should go check it out and give WaPo some hits.  I'm not sure if it was published in the actual paper, but I doubt it - after all who reading a physical paper knows what social networking is.  And I took a little excerpt from the article, so you should enjoy:

Metro could certainly use friends like one poster named Tim.

"I really think that Metro needs to stop talking service cuts and start talking fare increases," he wrote. "I understand that we raised fares only a year or two ago -- but I would much rather be paying an additional 50 cents per trip than I would have to deal with trains/buses coming less frequently (they already don't come frequently enough)."

Facebook Friends ... returned

If you recall I made a post (here) about Facebook friends back on January 15th.  Well it seems Doug Quenqua over at The Paper of Record is an avid reader of Connetiquette, because on January 28th, he published an article about Facebook friends as well (here).

BTW ... I promised to check on my friends everyday, but I forgot.  On the 15th I had 1, 325 friends, as of February 9th, I have 1, 331 friends.

It seems that Mr. Quenqua decided to write his article after the whole Burger King friendship scandal ... he just really talked about facebook and the different qualities of friendship.  He mentioned an idea that I have always thought about (and mentioned) - different categories of friendship.  Because clearly all your facebook friends do not share the equal standing as "friend."

Though I did take note with the fact that he said "While some people prefer the term “defriending,” a quick survey of user-created groups on Facebook shows “unfriending” to be the more popular choice." ... I personally use the term defriending, I think that unfriending is weird.  

What do you think?  Please comment with your feelings.  Defriending, or unfriending?

Random Thought: Facebook Friends and Photos

So I was talking (or really more like arguing) with H the other day about Facebook friends.  It seems that he is losing Facebook friends left and right, for no apparent reason - and he is noticing because he monitors his number of friends.  Personally, I don't monitor the number of friends I have - I just know it is over 1,234 because GWCharlie pointed it out when I was at 1,233 - urging me to get to 1-2-3-4.  I just checked ... I have 1,325 friends (I'll check again tomorrow and let you know what the number is).

Anyway ... back to H ... He wonders why all these people are de-friending him or deactivating their accounts (he loses about a friend per day).  I thought that was a bunch of hogwash (I've never used that term, but it seems fun), and said that I thought it was just Facebook being stupid.  Back in the old days - when it was theFacebook (If you don't remember that, you suck) - I used to monitor my friend number ... and it used to fluctuate.  It would never constantly lose people - but it moved around, and I always just thought it was because Facebook had trouble counting.  Thinking about it H's hypothesis really makes more sense, but I insisted that I was correct.

Then he started accusing me of not knowing all 1,325 of my friends - and I conceded that I probably would only say hello to and/or have a conversation with about 1,100 of them (maybe 1,000 at the very least).  And of those other 300-400,  I would probably at least nod hello to half of them ... so that leaves 200 people that I really don't even know.  I generally have a strict rule about not friending people I don't really know, but even the best of rules gets broken now and again (apparently I broke my own rule quite frequently).  H suggested I go through my friends and clear out the people I don't know - something that seemed unnecessarily time consuming to me.

So I came up with the greatest idea ... I am also sending it to Facebook as a suggestion.  I personally think that all of us could use a friend purge from time to time, just because there are people who you add who you really don't know.  I think Facebook should prompt you - on the two year anniversary of a friendship - to find out if you are still friends with someone?  Just a simple "Do you know who X is?" and a button to "Remain Facebook Friends" or "Remove Facebook Friend".   I would assume that somewhere in Facebook's code is planted the date that we all became friends with each other - and if not, they can add it effective the implementation of the feature.  With all previous friends they could start a rolling-friend check ... and have it go through and check all your non-dated friends, slowly (to not overwhelm you all at once).

Thoughts?  I personally think its a great idea.

Along those lines it should be noted - I am going to spread some knowledge about Facebook customs.  If you know someone, and have interacted with them - you should remain friends.  

* If myself and Mr. X were grave enemies - we should be Facebook friends, we know each other and have dealt with each other.  

* If myself and Mrs. Y were once really good friends but had a falling out - we should still be Facebook friends, we knew each other for a long time and clearly had a friendship.  

* If myself and Mr. T went to high school with each other and would recognize each other on the street - we should be Facebook friends.

I have learned that some people just don't understand the concept of Facebook friends ... so I am here to teach you all.

So you might ask ... if I have such strict rules about how people who don't know eachother that well should remain friends - what purpose does this feature have?  Well, once in a while you meet people at a party, or online, or a friend of a friend - who after two years you realize that you don't really know this person, wouldn't say hi on the streets, and probably shouldn't be Facebook friends.  That is where this feature would come in handy.

Also ... I would like to touch on the issue of Facebook pictures.  This is an issue of great contention between me and the rest of the world.  And it probably has to do with my confused/distorted reality of the world and Facebook...  But to me, Facebook is a representation of you created by you and assisted by the world - this isn't a yearbook, everything isn't perfect.  I'm sure most people would agree with that.  And while I certainly frown upon it, I understand if you don't allow anyone to see pictures that are tagged of you.  But what I don't understand is people who de-tag pictures that they deem are unattractive, or unbecoming.

The purpose of tagging a picture is to show you - if you are in the picture, no matter how ridiculous you look - you should be tagged.  Done and done.  Everyone has bad pictures taken of them ... it is a fact, it happens, people understand.  If someone is Facebook stalking you and sees 15 bad pictures out of 100 - they aren't going to think about the bad ones - they are going to think about all of them.   Yet if I stalk someone who only has the most perfect pictures of them up, I wonder what is wrong with them.  Are they insecure?  Do they have a distorted reality of the world?  Clearly something is wrong that they seem to find the need to only portray themselves in an unrealistic, perfect light.

I realize I am in minority on this one ... and have stopped fighting with my friends over it - but I seek to start a change.  Join with me, leave a comment on this thread and take the pledge ... take the pledge to stop de-tagging pictures of yourself in Facebook picture - people deserve to see the real you.

America.  Out.

Reader Round

If you have to work today ... I'm sorry

* Okay ... this is a personal appeal.  If you, or someone you know has a subscription (either print or online) to The Next American City ... please let me know.  GW's library, which I still have access to has full text via ProQuest, but ProQuest has not updated their database since last spring.  Needless to say, I don't have the money to pay $50 for the online subscription.  But if you do happen to come across a copy, and it is Issue 21 - check out the following articles:

- The Bell Tolls for Municipal Wireless: This seems like a great article about Philly's attempts to make the city the first full WiFi city in the country.

- New York's Other Banking Crisis

- Two Tales of a City: About Baltimore.

* Lifehacker had this a billion years ago - from a CEO - 12 steps to success - check it out.

* Also via Lifehacker - a service called LifeTango which helps to organize your goals - here.

* I don't know what pisses me off more - having to download a PDF or having it embedded in the web page and causing my browser to freeze.  Well a company called Issuu wants to stop annoying you - and has a neat little code you can embed in your website that makes PDFs, DOCs, and presentations all very pretty and friendly.  Check it out via TechCrunch, here.

* Speaking of Net Neutrality the other day ... apparently Australia is not a fan.  Via Wired, here, the Australian government would like to block approximately 1300 sites - such as those that show child pornography, excessive violence, how-to guides for crime, and terrorism stuff.  Yes, the Aussies are blocking sites that we can all agree are bad - but I'm sorry - its boils down to the same thing as burning books - it just shouldn't happen.  If we are concerned about what our kids can see (which is the strongest argument in this type of thing), we should put in place more strict age controls on our computers and websites.

* Did Google make a mistake in buying YouTube?  Is Hulu where it is at?  Gigaom is reporting, here,  from the FT that major music labels may be in talks with Hulu to host their premium content.  This comes just on the heels of Warner Music's fight with YouTube, causing them pull their content.  It will be interesting to see where that goes...

* One of the funniest articles on The Onion ever: Even CEO Can't Figure Out How RadioShack Still In Business.  It is beyond funny because it is so true ... I am always amazed that RadioShack is still open, the one in DCUSA always seems to be loaded with people.  Here is a quote from the article:

"Have you even been inside of a RadioShack recently?" [the CEO] asked. "Just walking into the place makes you feel vaguely depressed and alienated. Maybe our customers are at the mall anyway and don't feel like driving to Best Buy? I suppose that's possible, but still, it's just...weird."

* Corrupt was shocked that Bush signed a law supporting the Gays ... I'm not.  W, I'm proud.  Here.

* USB 3.0 will be making an appearance at CES.  I'm stoked.  Are you?  Here.  In case you haven't heard, USB 3.0 is the nwe USB standard that is of course still backwards compatible with 2.0 and 1.1 - but is super fast.

* Social Search ... could it happen?  Yes.  Do we need two partners we actually use?  Yes.  Will that happen? Probably not.  As this TechCrunch article points out - the two logical partners in a social search operation are Google and Facebook.  Now, FB has already partnered with Microsoft for Live Search (which sucks and no one uses), but imagine if FB and Google go together.  Imagine when you googled something, you'd see all results in relation to things your friends did - reviews they have written, if they worked there, etc.  TechCrunch reviewed a Google and FB plugin, called SideStripe - which basically does this for them - its really cool.  Check it out!

* Lifehacker: Prius as an emergency generator ... interesting idea.  Here.

Finally, I'd like to close with this from H: