I have been using Facebook for the last few weeks on my college buddy, Andy's, recommendation.  He told me that he reconnected with old friends on the site.  He was correct.  I have chatted with old high school and college friends, I have talked with current friends and even attempted to connect with people who I have met through the blog.  

There are differences between each of the social networking sites (in addition to this blog, I have my Twitter account, and now a Facebook site).  I told my friend David that the blog is like a coffee shop conversation; Twitter is like bar conversation and Facebook is like a private cocktail party.

Each venue offers advantages and disadvantages.  Through Facebook I have chatted with high school and college acquaintances (along with current friends - thanks, David and Mike).  I don't get some aspects of the site yet (Mafia Wars offers no appeal to me), but generally enjoy keeping up with old friends.  The blog, on the other hand, has introduced me to new people.  It offers greater flexibility to frame my conversations (By the way, please comment on articles whether you disagree or agree. It is a wonderful sign of life for bloggers and greatly appreciated.  Try it, you'll like it).  CO is my favorite of the venues.  It allows me to stretch out and think a bit more.  Twitter is an endless conversation stream.  You can listen; you can stop and comment and you can even join conversations on several levels - Twitter allows you to "tweet"  about someone's comments (and they can easily see that you have done so) and it allows you to send direct messages as well.  Twitter has a variety of tools built around it as well.  My current favorite is the music site, Blip.

"Why?" is a frequent question that I get from people.  Why use these sites?  My answer is a question:  "Why do we have conversations with people?"  "Why do we join community groups?"  "Why do we write letters and emails to people?"  Interaction is the answer.  We ultimately gain from interacting with others, provided of course that it is the right type of interaction.  And for me it has been.  The experiment continues.