Wednesday, July 9, 2008

Genea-Bloggers Adopt Facebook

Is it just me, or have more and more genea-bloggers and their fans been joining Facebook?

Like others, I was very resistant to Facebook at first. My first invite came out of the blue, literally, from some unknown 1st cousins in Post Falls, Idaho. They had found this blog and realized that their father was one of my uncles. So I dove in somewhat hesitantly.

Hesitantly in the same way in which I approached blogging over a year ago - I started asking myself questions such as:

- do I really want to do this?
- will all my "business" be out there for people to see?
- should I worry about others stealing pictures or post text?

For Facebook, I worried that I would only use it occasionally to keep in touch with my cousins. Little did I know that more and more of my blogging peers would join and find new widgets and gadgets to use!

Sometimes Facebook can be overwhelming, especially when there are many requests and notifications. When I am requested to add an application, many times I am leery if it seems too off the wall or if I feel it will bombard me with stuff. So, I will add it, then very often remove it if it just isn't for me.

One aspect that I am psyched about: groups. I've just started the Genea-Bloggers group and have even secured a dedicated, easy-to-remember web address:

http://groups.to/genea-bloggers/

So, if you are on Facebook and are either a genea-blogger or just play one on TV, please take a look.

5 comments:

Kathryn Doyle said...

Thomas,
My hesitation came from my two college-age children who are now mortified that I have a Facebook page.

Moultrie Creek said...

I see a lot of potential but haven't really been able to focus well because there's also a lot of distractions. I have to agree with Megan Smolenyak that it is very easy to post things to Facebook, but I'm still not comfortable navigating past the fluff to the meaty stuff.

Thomas MacEntee said...

Denise

I agree with the fluff vs. stuff. As I've gotten used to FB, I've decided not to get into gift sending, etc. with certain audiences - I usually save that for my cousins who use FB more for socializing.

Jennifer said...

Easy to just deny the applications you have no use for. Most of the time, the people who have sent things to you will never notice. It's the only way I have found to keep my profile page relatively clean...

Jasia said...

I gave Facebook a couple days to win me over (putting in a genuine effort to learn the ropes, connect with people, and observe what others were doing with it). It didn't. Now I'm doing a couple without Facebook. We'll see whether I'm happier with it or without it. The last 24 hours without it have been pretty nice. I'm not missing it at all :-)