Every now and then, someone invites me to join some social network, and the same thing usually happens:
- I sign up, enter in some subset of the usual 'profile' questions (especially the personal section is worth looking out for)
-I find a few people and become "friends" with them. Further ‘so-called’ dumb friends visit you and send friend requests and later are in no mood to communicate.
- I don't visit the site for a few months
- I get update email from the site encouraging me to find more friends
- I delete my profile from that site (except for Linkedin')

Orkut and Linkedin, too started on the similar path, but managed to survive the axe so far. The addition of old friends was a big reason, it's easy to log in now and then and see quickly if there is anything worth checking out (a friend posting a photo for instance). I also like how people are tagged in photo, so you are alerted when you've been tagged in a new photo for instance, or can
easily see the photos of one of your friends whether it was taken by them or not. One thing I  recently discovered is you can remove yourself from being tagged in an individual photo if you like; let's say someone snaps a shot of you and don't want everyone to see it every time they look at photos tagged of you, you actually can remove the tag from someone else's photo. So while you can't remove someone else's photo, you have some control over what photos of you people will easily discover. The rest of the privacy controls are good too. Linkedin manages to get some of my updates, but it is quite a dull professional platform.


One month ago, I helped my dad open a Facebook account. God knows why? I suggested my dad to do so. He agrees to whatever I say, well almost. Today, he is entirely hooked to the site, yet I am not tempted to join even after repeated invites from Facebook. Also, I do not subscribe to the recent article on Facebook. I do not understand the sudden craze for Facebook where one is busy
playing games and writing on the wall. 

Are we really interested in other’s personal lives to such an extent ? I do not want to create a profile on flixter, meebo, myspace or any other social site. My tolerance for creating profiles for new sites was at an all time low until I came across scientific blogging. I guess Hank considers this site as, "Facebook for scientists" and  honestly, could not stay back from creating profile. So, I am somewhere close to Facebook, abbreviated as fb (in lieu with my unnerved behavior with long names)