Thing 14: My life according to Facebook

Don't worry, I'm not going to give you my life story in all its fairly undramatic, pretty middle-class lack of glory. However, if you wanted to get a pretty good impression of its ups and downs over the last 5 years, you could do worse than just clicking on my Facebook profile.

This is not because I'm the kind of person who writes statuses about mealtimes and constantly updates her "places" - I avoid both. However, my primary (and exclusively personal) reasons for using Facebook are:

Green at Eighteen, the oldest photo
of me on Facebook. And that's
all you're getting.

1. To keep in touch with friends who don't live nearby, especially since my year abroad. This results in quite a few "catch-up" discussions. And
2. To pinch photos from people who are far more organised/talented/prolific with their cameras than I. The quality of photos downloaded from Facebook is perfectly passable and they print well, and it means that I don't have to chase people around with a USB key. However, it does result in an obscene amount of photos that I'm tagged in (I'm currently hovering just under 2,100, of which my year abroad accounts for about 1,000 and photos taken by me at about 10).

Both of which functions are excellently performed by the social media behemoth in blue. Yes, there are privacy concerns, but the vast majority of the information on Facebook could easily be found by a relatively techy 12 year old in a number of other places on the web anyway, and I'm very much of the opinion that "If you don't want to share it, don't publish it". So I don't. I would also never use Facebook for professional purposes, just like I wouldn't use text to communicate with colleagues or bring all my holiday snaps into the office.

Notwithstanding this, Facebook does seem to be a pretty good way of communicating information to library users. We've had a page at Classics since the last Cam23 programme and it is quite well followed, so we use it to pass on opening hours, loan information and new books. All this information is published elsewhere and it's not an interactive tool, but that's not really the point - it's just another way to flag up information without any effort from the user. Which is not to say we're lazy about it - our recently updated images were well received (and greatly entertaining to produce as well), so we still have to work to keep the interest up!

My circles are looking a little empty at the moment...

The question which I (and many other people) are now asking is: what is the future of Facebook with the advent of Google+ ? As far as I can tell, they have more or less the same aim and purpose, but Google+ is trying to address some longstanding common complaints about Facebook (such as the clunky layout, which I think Google+ does very well) and to reach an EVEN larger audience...ah ha, stumbling block. The markets which Facebook seems to miss out on are the under 15s and the 30-45 years age group, ie. well established professionals, who had left university by the time Facebook became mainstream. I've already mentioned how Facebook fits firmly into my personal domain and it would seem that many Cam23Thingers agree, so why should Google+ succeed where Facebook has failed? Here's one take on Google+'s success so far, from the point of view of using it in education. They don't yet seem convinced, and I must say, neither am I, despite the attractive layout and potential for "hangouts"...but I reckon we still have to give it time to find its legs, no matter how slick and techy it is. After all, it's still miles behind Facebook in terms of membership, so it will be difficult to judge its efficacy until it becomes more popular.