I have had a number of conversations about Facebook over the last couple of weeks. Facebook is a social networking web site – it is similar to MySpace or Xanga – but I think it is better.

I have used many other social networking type web sites in the past – most often as a tools to keep in touch with the youth that I work with at church. I started off with Live Journal – that is what all the kids were on – moved to Xanga – to MySpace – to Facebook…

I think I am at Facebook to stay! The web site is less about doing it your way and more about doing it the right way – don’t get me wrong – you have some control over how you would like to do stuff but it really doesn’t hinder how things should work in order to have a good user experience. In contrast – MySpace allows people to totally customize how their site looks – the majority of them (I visit) have broken every good design rule which makes their sites almost unusable – definitely not pleasant to use.

So here are my top 5 reasons to use Facebook instead of MySpace

1. The information comes to me.
In MySpace I have to poke around to all my “Friendsâ€? sites to see what they are up to – if I don’t I just don’t know. Facebook brings it all to me – it is telling me who is doing what – which groups people are joining – who has added new pictures… and so on.

2. Privacy
Facebook by default is more private – no one can see your account until you have labeled them as a friend – and even then you can choose for that person to see only your limited profile. In MySPace people can see a whole lot about you as the default setting.

3. Poking
Yup that is right – you can poke people in Facebook – still not sure why but I have to admit – it’s fun

4. Notes/Blog
In MySpace you can keep a blog – that is great but I already have a blog and don’t want to do it all over again somewhere else. Facebook allows you to pull an RSS feed of your blog right into your Notes in Facebook. What this basically means is that it automatically picks up what I write in my blog and presents it on my Facebook notes!

5. Groups
There is groups both in MySpace and in Facebook – I just like the way Facebook manages groups – they are easy to setup and manage – they are easy to invite people into and as mentioned earlier – the information about who is joining what groups comes to you – a great way to find out what groups your friends are in and what ones might interest you!

There are more things I love about Facebook – but these are my top 5 for now. If you don’t have an account – swing by the web site today and sign up – it’s free!

A quick note about the title – Hope in Facebook – this is a great success story for groups in Facebook. My friend’s sister – Hope – was in a brutal car accident about a week and a half ago – Jeff (my friend) setup a Facebook group to give updates called “Pray for Hope Wargaâ€?. Within just days the word had spread friend to friend and now there is almost 600 people in this group! If you want more information about Hope and her progress please feel free to join the group.

Well here is a top ten list that I am happy to not see my name on.

The 10 worst web pages features on WebPagesThatSuck.com in 2006

This is an enjoyable site for we to look through every once in a while – The premise is that you can learn good design by looking at bad – if nothing else it is a good laugh. The author – Vincent Flanders – only picks on organizations that should know better – not on teenagers trying to create the perfect virtual them on their MySpace site – <cringe>

Tyndale is far from the top ten worst web sites – we are not perfect – but not in that bad of shape either. There is one University that made the list – Brown University. I will let you read Vincent’s comments on the subject if you are interested – in summary:

…their home page is both poorly designed and overwhelmingly difficult to use…

Sidenote: #4 on his list is an embarasment to the Christian faith – a web site called – Acept Jesus, Forever Forgiven! – if you see it you will understand…