Spacebook?

Today I had some free time at work and decided to browse some of my friends myspace pages. I like doing this every so often so I know what to talk about the next time I see them in person. But instead of being greeted by all their latest news, my myspace friends served me only a sobering moment. Of the 30 or so friends whose accounts I browsed through, a good 70% haven't even logged into their myspace page for at least a month, some of them even longer. Have they all grown up and no longer feel the need to log in and update their profile? Am I a loser because I log into my account multiple times a day without fail to check for messages or comments? Or maybe it's something altogether different. Maybe they've simply migrated to the newer, trendier Facebook.

Recently, several of my friends have been hounding me to get a Facebook account, but even after I spent all last week on my couch, sick, with nothing to do, I couldn't bring myself to do it. As it is, I consistently log into 4 separate social networking accounts on a regular basis. My personal myspace page, the band's myspace page, the band's private myspace fan page, and the old band myspace page (Nobody seems capable of reading the notes I plastered on every inch of the page stating that the band's name has changed and "The Livingstons" no longer exist. I still get booking requests weekly, and though most are fruitless, I don't want to miss any opportunities.) This isn't even including the band's purevolume page, Bebo page, Oaktree page or any of the other 13 pages we've set up that I never log into. One more social networking site to log into just might drive me insane.

Let's say I do sign up for a Facebook account, what do I do next? Well I have to go out and find all my friends that I'm already friends with on myspace and add them to my Facebook account. Then I've got to pimp out a completely new profile (you do that on Facebook too don't you) so all my friends (or whatever they're called on Facebook) don't think I'm a nerd. Then I've got to upload all the same pictures that I uploaded on myspace and type a whole new description of the same me that has an account on myspace. Where does it end? Do I need to set up a Facebook for the band? A private facebook fan page? A Facebook page for "The Livingstons" just in case someone comes looking for the old band?

Don't get me wrong, I enjoy my friends and want to keep in touch with them, but how much time should in invest in maintaining the perfect online medium?

I suppose I should just accept the fact that myspace is slowly fading away considering I predicted it would happen in a blog a couple years ago (http://blog.myspace.com/index.cfm?fuseaction=blog.ListAll&friendID=5689225, entited "What I Really Think of Myspace"). Never-the- less I didn't think it would just fade away to make room for another different, but basically the same social network.

So where do I go from here? Is knowing the latest, up to the second info on all my friends important enough to double my online social networking accountage and bow to the throne of mighty Facebook? When I think about it, the times I do eventually run across a long lost "friend," it's a really good feeling. I get to see their latest pictures, catch up on all I've missed out through the years, and shoot them an email telling them how much I've been thinking of them. But then, once that minute and a half has passed, I understand why it is we fell out of touch in the first place. I care about them, but not enough to maintain a chain of more than 2 or 3 emails a year.

For now, I vote "no" to Facebook. I've got nothing against it, but I've probably got better things to spend my time doing then chasing down a bunch of people just to fall out of touch with again once the new latest and greatest network appears. I can do that on myspace for the time being, at least until their "most recent log in" prove that they really are long and lost again.


On a different note, John and Anthony are blogging again. Check their stuff out while it lasts!