math: still hard

*image - guess. google.

"Yes. I am the popular social networking site known as bookface." -- Jim Halpert

Every now and then I hear people talking about facebook in terms of how effective it can be and the quality (or lack thereof ) of friendships in relation to how many friends one has listed on their site. I've even heard studies (STUDIES!) saying that any number higher than 150 means that the person is just kidding themself into thinking that they have more friends than they actually do. Then that number changed to 187. Or Whatever.

This weekend, a few things happened (included, but not limited to):

1. My facebook friend count reached 1,000.
2. My google friend connect counter (on ye olde sidebar) reached 101.
3. I created a facebook page for this, my blog.

And now, the interesting aspects of these things happening:

1. I am in touch with -- as in, could actually begin and hold a meaningful conversation with -- my facebook friends. As in, I know them. I add people I know. I'm a loyal friend, and I'm in touch with people from yeeeeeeeeeeears ago, and I don't believe that simply having a higher number of friends than someone else means that my quality of friendships is any less. Of course, due to, you know, LIFE, I'm not able to give each friendship the attention I'd like, but I think that's a commonality for all of us as our lives get more complicated, and in the interim we take comfort in the fact that we don't have to see each other every other Friday in order to be considered friends.

Also interesting: shortly after my friend count reached 1,000, it went to 998. Not sure what happened there, if I was dropped or blocked, or if some people decided to delete their fb accounts. Either way, we just keep living lives and being friends, no?

2. Why is 101 so significant? Because I am one of the followers, so it means that I reached 100, which is nice. Perhaps of note is that the site Hopefully Mormon also reached 100 followers recently, and that site has been going for just months, not five years, so great job, guys. I know that the friend connect counter isn't a completely accurate way to see who all read my blog. But I am appreciative of those of you who have added yourselves, truly I am. I've said it before, the magic of posts often comes in the comments section, and that's a contribution from YOU. Thank you.

3. Yes, I created a formerly phread facebook page. I thought it would be a good idea, and a fun place to discuss things...that's right, another forum to discuss something which could be discussed at the forum itself. At the time of writing this post, 39 people 'like' that page. Do you have a facebook page for a business or site? If so, how does it help you, and/or in what ways is it used?

My head is spinning from all the numbers . . . spinning . . .

****

ps - speaking of what People say about facebook, I hear this a lot about twitter:

"Who cares what you're doing? I don't want to know where you are or what you're doing every single second of the day. NOBODY CARES."

Well.

I'll have you know that just last week I was lunching with @suedonym at #communal, and Sue tweeted the following:

At communal with @formerlyphread. Two of my favorites in one!

And guess who CARED about that. Justin Hackworth, that's who. He saw the tweet and walked in the rain to come say hello.

God Bless Social Media.