I'd still read email and Usenet with Telnet except my ISP discontinued support

[scarfman]

My sister's family was in town last night and treated qtrhorserider, scarfmom and me to dinner. My sister's in education and publishing. When I said I'm not on Facebook she asked, "Why not?"

The thesis word in my reply was "inertia". I didn't log onto LJ until Usenet and IRC had lost most of the people I socially network with. I don't anticipate LJ going toes-up anytime soon, and the couple times I looked at MySpace I found the user interface unintuitive. But what about FaceBook?

Anyone on my flist on Facebook? Whaddya think? What's the learning curve? Are there lots of our mutual friends there? Would being there get AKOTAS some exposure? How does this thing work I see being made fun of in webcomics, where other FaceBookers invite you to share a tapioca bath with a polar bear, and stuff?

Oh hell: Twitter, same questions. (Except the polar bear.)

Comments

[janusfiles.livejournal.com]

I'm on Facebook, but only because my brother and sister-in-law are. I might log on to Facebook once a week, if that, so I really don't know how it works/doesn't work.

[palmetto.livejournal.com]

Facebook is an odd duck. It's not hard to learn--my dad's on it--but I don't really use it for anything fannish. Instead, it's how I keep track of RL social events and my local social network--V89 (FSU's radio station) posts its artist features and specialty shows as events, and I use it to invite people to my yard parties.

That's just how I use it, though.

I love Twitter for following people like Stephen Fry and posting inanity via my cell phone. More fannish there, but there's only so much fannish activity one can do in 140 character bursts. You might find it useful for posting links to AKOTAS updates...my friend Jun does book and manga reviews and uses Twitter to advertise updates, and it seems to work well for her.

[hergrace.livejournal.com]

Frankly, I use facebook for the games and little notes to my RL local friends. I have a few cyber-friends there too, but tend to keep up with folks better via LJ. FB is relatively easy to get used to. Once you get a few friends on your list it keep suggesting friends of friends, which makes it a bit easier to expand your flist. I think if you posted AKOTAS there on your page, it would automatically come to your friends' pages, but I still don't know how to put a cut in (unless it's just to put the link to the page in your status line).

FWIW FB is a *great* time-waster with the games, especially BINGO (to which I'm sadly addicted). On the whole, though, as I say, I'd rather use LJ to keep in touch with my cyber-buds.

[elliptic-eye.livejournal.com]

Facebook: Simply a different set of users. My coworkers and college classmates are on Facebook, and I generally keep fandom and RL fairly separate--there's some overlap between my LJ f-list and FB, but not much. If you don't have any dichotomies like that and there's no group on Facebook you're looking to stay in touch with that you don't already, it's probably not worth the bother. Interface-wise, it's certainly different: It has an option to post entries similar to LJ with the Notes feature, but comparatively few people (of my acquaintance) actually use it that way. It's more geared toward brief interchanges, most of which are the one-line status updates and comments on same.

Twitter: I don't use it much, personally, but I do occasionally find it handy as a sort of spaced-out IM system. I'm never able to carry on an unbroken instant message conversation; Twitter lets you have a broken one. That, and Stephen Fry.

[antiwesley.livejournal.com]

I'm using Facebook more and more as a social tool as opposed to LJ.
There is a curve, but it gets easier and easier as time goes by.

I won't use MySpace at all, as it just looks ugly.
Twitter is to me, an ADD form of mobile phone texting.
I ignore people's "Tweets" mainly because they either reference other people's Twitter feeds, or don't make any sense.
As I said, it's texting for the Internet, IMHO.

(I still use Usenet, even though my ISP dropped support, I just had to find another purveyor and pay the fee)

[misterbill.livejournal.com]

myface, spacebook, flutter and all that stuff I just don't understand... and I really don't care to learn either.

[blinovitch.livejournal.com]

I think Facebook is best geared for socializing on a level where there's a face to face element at some point in the year, if not regularly.

In terms of AKOTAS, I've thought for a while now the comic could benefit by adopting a blog-like platform. And not just because then I could put it in my RSS reader and not have to remember to visit the site itself every morning -- a habit I've fallen out of since discovering the joys of Really Simple Syndication.

[scarfman]

I appreciate your hopes for the AKOTAS site. Unfortunately for such preferences, I'm unwilling to program that site with anything I haven't coded myself (so that, when things go wrong, it's something I can fix by myself), and I've yet to graduate beyond HTML. Sorry.

[blinovitch.livejournal.com]

I can understand your reasoning, but I think it hurts your ability to expand readership by not taking advantage of technologies like RSS.

[scarfman]

I know. Perhaps one day.

[chocolatescifi.livejournal.com]

I think what blinovitch is suggesting is that it's time for you to take a class in how to code for RSS.

[scarfman]

I was actually signed up for that class two years ago, but had to transfer to classes on a different schedule when my job changed. At present I'm in the midst of another job change. Perhaps one day.

[truthmaker]

I use facebook to keep track of old classmates. It seems more a tool for keeping in contact with folks you know in RL than a tool for discussion/stories/etc like LJ.

Twitter is more of a train of thought tool. "What are you doing right now?" I could see it useful for you to post a tweet when you post up a comic or add something to your sketchbook site.

And I agree with you on myspace. It is useless.