I signed up to Facebook in late 2007 and have used many of its features since then. Its “Notes” app is very basic, not nearly as useful as the blogging tools on Wordpress or Blogger, but that’s fine since I go there mostly to get a quick overview of what my friends are doing online or to play a Scrabble clone with a friend.

I’m well aware of the Boogeyman in re: child predators online, and I think safety is almost always a good thing. I’m also well aware that most sexual predators are friends and family of the victims, abusing the trust they’ve built up over time. I’d be interested in knowing what percentage of victims are actually picked up through social networking services; I’d bet that the worry is mostly trembling over shadows. Which is not to say that predators aren’t online–far from it–but imposing restrictions on a technology is a subpar solution in comparison to the messier and less comfortable act of actually talking to your children and teaching them how to assess danger.

At any rate.

Myspace is a horrible site unless you’re hoping to get a deluge of spam delivered in your choice of a bevy of godawful designs, all using a table-based layout for data that isn’t tabular.

Facebook is a better site if you’re less interested in spam, and also if you want much more granular control over your privacy–you can set very specific restrictions on different activities on the site, based on groups that you create yourself.

I have more than 2-3 friends on Facebook already. I have a profile. I’ve written on walls. I’ve joined groups. I’ve grafittied walls. I’ve laid down bingoes in Wordscraper, formerly Scrabulous, formerly much more like Scrabble. I’ve accepted a few invites to useful applications. I’ve rejected countless invites to useless applications. I’ve built a virtual bookshelf and added hundreds of books to it. I’ve joined the Library 2.0 interest group and poked around, withholding judgment till it’s merited. For now I can say that it looks interesting and I hope it will prove to be.