Like locked cell phones and copy-protected music, Facebook is on the wrong side of the open-network debate. Facebook is a sealed bubble. Facebook users are locked into Facebook, just as iTunes locks music fans to Apple’s iPod.
This serves companies’ business interests, but not the wider interests of consumers.
[…]
At this point, “friend” relationships remain unique to the social networks. The web still lacks a generalized way to convey relationships between people’s identities on the internet. The absence of this secret sauce — an underlying framework that connects “friends” and establishes trust relationships between peers — is what gave rise to social networks in the first place. —Scott Gilbertson —Slap in the Facebook: It’s Time for Social Networks to Open Up (Wired)
I couldn’t have said it better. This is why I have no particular desire to use a fenced-in system. Yes, I have my students blog with MovableType, but the software is free for private users.
Having said that, I realize that the appeal for some people is precisely that they can share their information with a small group of friends, but all it takes is for one friend to squeal.
I also confess to feeling a bit uncomfortable at the prospect of contacting a researcher whose work I find useful, and telling them I want to be his or her “friend”. In the clinically hierarchical world of academia, even “colleague” might be presumptuous.
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I think they've added a "Top Friends" option to Facebook to kind of address this "need" to distinguish friends you simply added at the beginning of Facebook and those that you really like now.
It's amazing how Facebook keeps evolving. Software is made specifically for the community. Sleek advertising is added surreptiously to "help" students with their back-to-school transitions. And if it makes kids feel like their within their own bubble, they're keeping it exclusive, but only to the point so that it serves their marketing purposes. Genius.
If I'd start an entrepreneurial group, I know who I'd invite first: Facebook creators. I wonder if they'd be my friends? haha
I've also heard the verb form "to friend" (meaning "to add as a friend"). Some time ago I came across the term "friends cut," which emphasizes the capitalization of social status.
Fascinating how the term "friend" has morphed since the genesis of social networking... We don't just "make friends" anymore--we must "be friended" or "added as a friend" to have our names displayed alongside others with whom a person associates (or knows vaguely through minor interaction).
Rejection is a lot easier, too, in that sense. If someone requests to be my friend I can deny the request--try doing this face-to-face. I can't honestly say that I could. I would at least speak kindly to the person instead of handing them a conclusive (and unannounced) rejection--on Facebook you never know if someone has accepted or rejected the request.
I have some friends (real-life friends, mind you) who choose to weed out their friend lists once in awhile to keep a true-to-life list of friends. I have to admit, it makes things a lot less creepy when you actually do know the folks whose "Wall" you're writing on to say "Happy Birthday!" or "I love your profile pic."