My Vote Goes to Facebook Over Myspace

New social networking sites pop up all the time, often right when you're getting used to the ones you're currently using. Twitter seems to be the latest craze, which to me just seems like one big Facebook status update. Guess what? I still don't care what you did at exactly 2:57 pm Sunday night, or that you're currently walking to the mailbox in your underwear. My site of choice is Facebook, although I was partial to MySpace at one point. I shamelessly log onto Facebook multiple times a day. It helps me feel connected to the people I'm friends with, and serves as a consistent source of entertainment. I log onto MySpace probably once every couple months. I should probably just delete my account, but I guess I'm afraid the minute I do MySpace will suddenly become better than Facebook again. Doubtful.

I initially preferred Facebook due to its greater variety of features and its cleaner layout. The layout still remains cleaner, although MySpace seems to have caught up to Facebook in terms of feature variety. Even with the added applications though, Facebook remains a higher quality site in my opinion.

Simply put, Facebook is more visually appealing than MySpace. The younger crowd may take pleasure in the option of using html to customize their profiles. I find it irritating. I cringe to think people actually choose to litter their profiles with glittery images of hearts, angels, and rainbows. I suppose it's a matter of personal preference, but I prefer the orderly linear setup of Facebook profiles, even at the expense of personal expression (and with all the crazy applications now available on Facebook, there's still plenty of room for personal expression).

I like the option to have wall conversations on Facebook, rather than the only means of public communication between friends being through back and forth wall comments. Not only is it more convenient for those participating, it makes the exchanges easier for onlookers to understand. This is to assume that you want others to understand-but isn't that the point of public conversations?

I like the tabbed organization of Facebook profiles. This was an added feature to the "New Facebook" that was launched back in July of 2008. At first I hated it for reasons I now can't recall other than it was something new and I typically don't welcome changes to things that aren't broken. If I could modify the current set-up though, I would have the "info" tab be the default tab you see when you first click on a profile. To me that makes more sense.

The groups seem to be a much bigger deal on Facebook. MySpace has groups, but from what I remember, they were never very active in terms of forum discussions. Certainly there is a range of activity among the groups on Facebook, but the ones that hit it off can end up serving as thriving areas for conversation, photo sharing, and networking among members. One nitpicky criticism I have is that the group "walls" often turn out to be multiple-page comment strings that would be better contained within the discussion forum.

For those who like chatting in real-time, there is Facebook Chat, a feature MySpace has yet to introduce. I have always been instant-message phobic and prefer conversing via private messages, but I can easily choose to be "offline" and thus avoid random "hey what's up?" messages. It's nice just to know it's there.

Tips for using Facebook:

Tired of sifting through all the annoying newsfeed updates about Farmville black sheep, Restaurant City ingredients, and other things you know nothing about? The good news is you can block individual applications form showing up on your newsfeed. Just hover your cursor over the top right corner of an update and click "hide this application." The bad news is there is still no "block all" button. You can also block individual friends from showing up on your newsfeed, the same way that you would block an application.

To clean up your newsfeed you can organize your friends into categories, either by clicking on "Create New List" in the left-hand column of the homepage, or by individually assigning friends to groups by clicking on the "Friends" button at the top of the homepage. You can set your default newsfeed to only show updates from a certain group of friends, or you can switch back and forth among groups by clicking on the group name in the left-hand column of the homepage.

Facebook has extensive Privacy Settings that allow you to decide exactly how public or private you want your profile to be. You can specify which areas or applications of your profile are visible, to which users (everyone, just friends, people in your network, etc.). You can also specify which users can post on your wall, which "stories" will be published on your friends' newsfeeds, and what information will appear when other users search for you.

Don't like a photo you've been tagged in showing up in your photo section? Un-tag yourself! Just click on the "remove tag" link of your name that appears under the photo.