For those who doesn’t have an account in facebook, I recommend you to get one. Facebook is burning hot! Friendster, Multiply and MySpace will soon be a history.
I signed up about a month ago under recommendation of an Australian friend. He said that it was a good way to connect with people. At first, I couldn’t be bothered. I’ve had two accounts on Friendster and one on Multiply already. It would be too much to have another one, I thought. But then, I got more and more invitations from my friends’ facebook. So, one day, I decided to sign up. And now, here I am, before I know it, I already addicted to this site! I check it everyday, whenever I get a chance. It’s crazy. It’s even more addictive than alcohol.
I found Facebook is more interesting than Friendster and Multiply. It’s fun since there are just so many cool applications, such as we can tickle our friends, send them cocktails/cakes/gifts/naughty gifts, cast a spell, etc. It’s just hilarious. That’s why I’m all hooked!
Even though, I have to admit that not many people here in Jakarta are aware of this site yet, compared to Friendster. Just to give you a rough figure, I have more than 1,000 people on my friends’ list on friendster (and 99.9% I know these people personally. They’re my real friends, so they do exist!), but on Facebook, until today, I only have 138 friends. It’s true that the fact might be different in the other countries.
As I noticed, during my first days as a “new-bee” in Facebook, I mostly “only” found my graduate school friends from Europe or the States. I was so happy and excited to meet them again as we’re all scattered everywhere, in each corner of the world. Some of them live far away from where I live and I really miss them. Having “friend requests” from them is just like finding long lost friends (of course with the closest friends, we still keep in touch by email, but not with all friends, right?).
I was kind of waiting to see when Facebook became popular among my Indonesian friends. Apparently, I might not have to wait long, during this week, I started to get “friend requests” from my Indonesian friends here! Yipppeee… It seems that the wind is blowing from European and American continents heading to South East Asia region! Still, it’s not as popular as Friendster yet. People are still hesitant to sign up a new account on Facebook. When I asked around, usually they gave me the same answer, like: “I have Friendster and MySpace already. I don’t want to have another similar site. What for? And uhm… what the hell is Facebook?”Don’t worry… I believe when everyone starts to talk about it, then.. BOOM! People will race to sign up. It’s getting there ;).
There are already 31 million active users who probably as addicted as me. And according to July Time magazine, with more than 150,000 new users signing up daily, Facebook is growing three times as fast as MySpace.
And guess what, in 2006 study in USA, Facebook was named as the most popular site among American college students and the second most popular thing among undergrads after iPod. It’s sharing equal importance with beer and sex! (The Sunday Times, August 19, 2007).
Salute to Mark Zuckerberg, a Harvard College student, who invented this site in 2004!! Well done, dude! I found the most handsome guy from my grad school again because of you! Hahaha.. (guess which one is the hunk?!) ;)