I seem to have two types of friends: those that like Facebook and those that hate it. The haters have a range of explanations, but the common theme seems to be: “I don’t need a tool to manage my friendships!”
I like Facebook quite a bit, and I think I’ve finally figured out the core of why it works so well. (Maybe I’m just slow).
It’s about “soft sharing”: I can share things about myself, my life, my work, and my family without being intrusive to my friends. For example, I’ve recently been hacking around on a small CNC machine in my shop. I’d never email out project updates and pictures to ~300 friends, but I did post things about it on Facebook. Facebook provides tools for my friends to sort through what they do and don’t want to see.
The result has been really interesting: I’ve met a few new people (friends of friends), and ended up with some meetings that never would have happened otherwise.
So, to my Facebook hater friends: relax, and sign up.