Mashable - The Social Media Guide - Latest Comments in Can Anyone Be Your Facebook Friend?

Re: Can Anyone Be Your Facebook Friend?

brock — Sat, 25 Apr 2009 19:41:26 -0000

this website sucks.because if you comment anything they wont answer it.

Re: Can Anyone Be Your Facebook Friend?

brock — Sat, 25 Apr 2009 19:38:01 -0000

i love girls how about you?

Re: Can Anyone Be Your Facebook Friend?

brock — Sat, 25 Apr 2009 19:36:05 -0000

i love metallica

Re: Can Anyone Be Your Facebook Friend?

Keith Stewart — Sun, 12 Apr 2009 08:04:06 -0000

Just as many friends as you need and are comfortable with. Thats the ideal number, but 'overload' must surely exist.

Re: Can Anyone Be Your Facebook Friend?

katie — Wed, 08 Apr 2009 09:48:07 -0000

hiya were u from an how old r u

Re: Can Anyone Be Your Facebook Friend?

maxiboy — Tue, 07 Apr 2009 09:38:01 -0000

Hi, nice to meet you.

Re: Can Anyone Be Your Facebook Friend?

Steven — Sun, 05 Apr 2009 04:15:28 -0000

My FaceBook friends are those I know in real life (including family) or have had an extensive communica over the years. As a teacher I like to keep some of my life private so my profile setting is set to private and I only accept family, real life friends, friends known for many years on other services and a couple of workmates that I like keeping in contact with.

I'm not the type to add willynilly each and every person I come across within the social network; the term friend then starts to become meaningly as no relationship had previously formed or is sustained.

Re: Can Anyone Be Your Facebook Friend?

Dheeru — Sun, 05 Apr 2009 01:02:32 -0000

Yes anyone can be your friend on facebook this i feel personally, I am new to facebook and have 1000 friends there, i regularly gets friend request from friend of my friend making my circle grow bigger and bigger.

Re: Can Anyone Be Your Facebook Friend?

John Foster — Fri, 03 Apr 2009 11:28:52 -0000

I think FB is a great tool and I've been using friend groups since before the latest redesign. Because my weekend job/hobby is DJing and promoting concerts I'm going to have a ton of people who are casual acquaintances from the club who simply want to know when/where our next event will be held. Breaking them into a separate group and only inviting that group to an event is great. MySpace isn't that versatile for promoting events. I also have school-alumni and work-alumni to keep up with former classmates and coworkers. Finally I have my Top 20 IRL friends and the unknown bucket. The latter has almost no access to my profile or other information. I rarely look at the full stream of updates and concentrate on my Top 20 IRL friends. Plaxo tried to be the only address book you need, but Facebook is better suited to that because of the number of people on the service. LinkedIn has only close business associates, people I would hire/contract with, or well known movers & shakers at your local professional association meetings who are out spoken enough to call upon if you need an opinion on a topic.

Re: Can Anyone Be Your Facebook Friend?

ANGELA MOSLEY — Fri, 03 Apr 2009 11:28:27 -0000

HI, YOU KNOW, THIS ARTICLE CAUGHT MY EYE BECAUSE I HAD RECENTLY BEEN CONTACTED BY PEOPLE ON FACEBOOK WANTING "TO BE MY FRIEND" THAT I DID NOT KNOW AT ALL....FACEBOOK IS A WONDERFUL TOOL TO USE TO CATCH UP WITH OLD HIGH SCHOOL FRIENDS AND TO STAY IN TOUCH WITH RELATIVES AND FRIENDS OUT OF STATE. I ALSO CAUTION THAT IT CAN BE VERY DANGEROUS IF YOUR PROFILE IS NOT PROTECTED AND YOU "MAKE FRIENDS" WITH PEOPLE YOU DO NOT KNOW. PLEASE BE AWARE...WHILE I HAVE RECONNECTED WITH SOME OLD FRIENDS, PLEASE USE DISCRETION IN THE FRIENDS YOU MAKE...

Re: Can Anyone Be Your Facebook Friend?

chantelle — Thu, 02 Apr 2009 08:27:53 -0000

hiya

Re: Can Anyone Be Your Facebook Friend?

virtuallyready — Wed, 01 Apr 2009 10:00:01 -0000

My business is about web presence, but when I receive a new friend request, I always review their information first. If they don't appear to be legit and don't include a friendly intro message, most likely they simply won't get added.

On Facebook, you can now create lists and then add your new friends to certain lists (ie, you can create lists such as personal friends, school mates, family, business associates). When a friend request is received, you are offered a pull-down menu where you can select the appropriate list. You can add or edit anytime you wish by going to the "friends" link at the top of your home page

Furthermore, you can maintain a certain level of privacy associated with those lists in your account privacy settings.

Lastly, when it comes to being inundated with TMI on your homepage news feed, you can now select a specific view from each of those lists you created.

Re: Can Anyone Be Your Facebook Friend?

Glenn D. Hudson — Wed, 01 Apr 2009 03:16:21 -0000

did you ever consider that not everyone is as tech savvy as you? that some may actually need a consultant to conduct business online, genius?

Re: Can Anyone Be Your Facebook Friend?

Susan — Tue, 31 Mar 2009 14:02:47 -0000

Yeah, Facebooks for real people friends and distant relatives (definitely under 100). Twitter for exploring interesting new people and news outlets -- but I like the refreshing trickle, not the flattening firehose.

Re: Can Anyone Be Your Facebook Friend?

Edouard Stenger — Tue, 31 Mar 2009 11:27:48 -0000

I don't add people I don't know on Facebook. Like you, I consider it is done for friends or colleagues.

I do the same on Twitter...

Re: Can Anyone Be Your Facebook Friend?

Aron Watson — Tue, 31 Mar 2009 04:54:44 -0000

No, not anyone can be your friend on Facebook.

One of the main reasons you should keep your friend's list on Facebook to a minimum is it's
against there TOS to solicit new friends you don't *really* know.

If you send out a lot of friend's requests, and a certain amount get's denied, your account can be automatically disabled.
If you message,poke,send video links to large amounts of friends, your account can be disabled.
If you send out birthday invites to 100 friends and family, and use the *same* message, you can
be red-flagged as a spammer, and your account automatically disabled.

And to get your account re-enabled, the wait can be anything from 2 days to 2 months.

So even though Facebook is a social networking site, in some cases, It's not a good idea to
be to social.

Re: Can Anyone Be Your Facebook Friend?

Kris — Tue, 31 Mar 2009 04:15:22 -0000

i agree i only have 4 friends on facebook! beat that! hehe!

Re: Can Anyone Be Your Facebook Friend?

Stacey Small — Mon, 30 Mar 2009 22:39:38 -0000

While at first, it was not my intention to have Facebook friends who I didn't know personally, I soon found that I can learn a great deal from things total strangers post. I'm grateful to many people on Facebook who post interesting links that I might not have come across otherwise (expanding horizons). I use Facebook to keep up on the little things in my friends' lives but I also lean on it heavily as a means to convey information to my friends and contacts that I think is important about the causes (and Causes) I support. I figure that if anyone doesn't like all the posts, they can tone down what they see from me or drop me entirely if it's that much of a problem. So far I haven't lost anyone. I don't know what my personal cutoff will be, but I'm sure I'll know when I hit it.

As far as current co-workers, with a few exceptions, I only friend work people who I no longer work with - people I want to stay in touch with after one of us has moved on. This just keeps some space between my personal time and my work time. So far I've only had one co-worker directly ask me why I didn't respond to her friend request, and I just told her, "Well, when you quit or I quit, we can use it to stay in touch!" and she accepted that.

On the other hand, I follow on Twitter fairly indiscriminately. Some people are local and I enjoy getting the text updates about what's going on in town. Others I check out when I'm online and they've led me to some great new sources of information.

LinkedIn I keep fairly limited as I see it as a truly professional networking tool. Almost all of my contacts are people I've personally done business with but I have a few connections with whom I share common background, or we may have a mutual benefit from sharing our network.

Re: Can Anyone Be Your Facebook Friend?

Jane Tattersall — Mon, 30 Mar 2009 18:59:59 -0000

I have a weird system where its mostly reactive to people who find me. I don't really send friend requests unless I need to chat with someone. This is based on the fact I am usually early to these networks and not interested in sending out multiple "join here" emails. I tend to approve people I "don't hate", ie no to people I've never met or people I'm not fond of. Yes to people who I like/love or enjoy the company of, however inconsistent our relationship is.

I agree its tough to manage the newsfeeds etc with too many friends (I'm at 900 which is very high to me), but I use the products on the facebook platform that are useful to me - chatting, sharing content, etc. Newsfeeds are not a primary source of info - more like a constant stream of silliness I dip in and out of as the mood seizes me. I don't feel that's a place to share anything that you don't care whether or not I see.

Re: Can Anyone Be Your Facebook Friend?

Darren Alff — Mon, 30 Mar 2009 17:28:40 -0000

I get friend requests a lot of times for people who find me through my business. I have a business page set up, but how do I tell these people who are contacting me on my personal Facebook account that I would prefer that they become a fan of my business on my business' Facebook Page? Any suggestions there?

Re: Can Anyone Be Your Facebook Friend?

Blix — Mon, 30 Mar 2009 17:03:24 -0000

Agree, on every level- though being the boss, I still find myself torn when it comes to FB friending employees. Do I want my employees to see my status update that I'm playing Legos with my kids at 8am while they're supposed to be working? Not really.

Facebook for me is very personal. Company Twitter & Blog are where I live it up with the clients. Facebook is for when I go home.

Re: Can Anyone Be Your Facebook Friend?

Bruce Tretter — Mon, 30 Mar 2009 16:13:23 -0000

Interesting thoughts. Haven't spent nearly as much time on FB as Twitter. Like the idea of keeping FB more personal. My goal w. Twitter is to get the word out about what I have to offer to help others - picture book basics for new/non-cooks, especially those 20-30 years old. Was thinking about expanding that to FB. Now, maybe not. Thanks - Bruce

Re: Can Anyone Be Your Facebook Friend?

Ashok Nare — Mon, 30 Mar 2009 15:54:39 -0000

I totally agree.

I use facebook to manage and keep up with my personal contacts -- primarily family and friends. I do not have any coworker on my facebook profile yet because even though I am friends with a lot of my coworkers, they have not crossed the threshold of being able to participate in personal life.

I use LinkedIn exclusively for professional networking (granted that is it's primary use) and I generally don't accept connections unless I know the person in some form (unless I am networking with recruiters and marketing professionals).

I think I am the most liberal with Twitter -- I let people follow me as long as the profile does not arise any suspicions for me and I only follow them back if their profiles are connected to my interests one way or another.

So, no -- anyone cannot be my facebook friend !

- Ashok

Re: Can Anyone Be Your Facebook Friend?

Annalise — Mon, 30 Mar 2009 15:35:12 -0000

Anyone can be your Facebook friend. The problem one person really can't have close freindships with hundreds or more people. The really great thing about having a lot of connections on social networks is that it gives you the capabilities to send mass communication to people along with marketing to a varied demographic. -Annalise www.ezanga.com

Re: Can Anyone Be Your Facebook Friend?

bradleyf81 — Mon, 30 Mar 2009 14:10:10 -0000

So many people use these online social sites as an extension of the high school popularity contest mentality. It's ridiculous. I restrict my "friends" on social sites to people that I'm actually friends with, and almost without exception to people I've actually met in person before. Also, just because I've met someone in person doesn't mean that I want them to be my "friend" on a social network either.

What's the point of having a social network of thousands if you're not doing it for business reasons? Do you really keep up with what those multitudes of people are doing? Do you really care what they're doing? Do you somehow feel better about yourself by looking at the number of "friends" you have that accepted your friend request but will never actually take the time to get to know you?

One thing that really bothers me is random invites from people I've never met or even talked to. I get this the most from BlogCatalog, and somewhat from Twitter. If you want to send me a friend request, at least have a conversation with me first so I have a reason to consider it.

I'll stop ranting now!