hwork.org

So last night it finally happened; I joined the 50 million+ (200,000+ a day) network behemoth facebook (which, by the way Mom, you can join too). I can’t say it was my idea; it was mainly Mark (Hendrickson) and Kate’s, with the help of Rock (Mark M.). Beer played a part. But my real weak-willed-ness came from not from intoxication or peer cajoling, but from sheer curiosity. Facebook is the thing on the web right now, its hottest property, and now calling myself a startup dude, I’ve been feeling the need to check it out. Not only is facebook the hottest thing, but the buzz in the valley that developing for the network, aka creating a facebook ‘app’, is what’s lucrative and promising these days. I mean, 200 thousand people a day are joining facebook; why not join the craze?

Regardless, the transition has not come smoothly. Initially, I wanted to join with my still functioning bowdoin.edu address. Not that it’ll stay active for very long, but registering with my bowdoin address gives me full stalker access to every student, current and past, who once shared a room in one of the Bowdoin bricks. In other words, I can visit their ‘profiles’ without being their ‘friends’. Pretty fun.

Sadly, there is a hiccup. While I can still access my account, and all other email still forwards to me from bowdoin, for some reason the facebook emails will not go through. George, a nBiter who works at IT, says it has something to do with ‘UTF-7′ and gmail. And more unfortunately, when Bowdoin switched to a new email system, email forwarding no longer saves a local copy on Bowdoin’s servers; it just deletes it (wtf?).

In sum; I have facebook. I have no updated information (save what Mark put in for me), a few friends (NZ’ers mainly!), and I don’t even have a picture up yet. Once I get this bowdoin thing sorted, I’m fully ready to assimilate into the social network I should have joined three years ago. Such is the internet. You’re always finding things that everyone else found a long time ago. Just to think that somewhere out there someone is just discovering the star wars kid.