680News - Lisa Brandt

Ivor Tossell’s column in today’s Globe and Mail beat me to a little tweak I’ve noticed on Facebook and wanted to comment on.

I joined Facebook quite a long while ago to connect with 680News listeners and friends, old and new. If you’ve never been on it, Facebook allows you to accept people as “friends” and then you can communicate with them through the website privately, share photos and play games like Scrabble.

At first, I accepted just about anyone who asked to be my friend. If they didn’t appear to be a serial killer or overt stalker, I clicked “yes” when I was asked. Many of my radio colleagues, past and present, are now friends and it’s fun and simple to communicate with them through the site.

Now I’ve become much more picky. Some folks are mere friend collectors who just want to add to their totals. Well, I don’t need them to see what’s going on with me, so I say no or ask WHY they want to hook up. That sometimes scares them off! That doesn’t mean you should be afraid to send me a friend request. Just tell me why you want it!

But now Facebook is going too far, in my opinion. They offer up a little window with three people you “may want to add as friends.” In my case, it’s usually people in radio. And it’s usually the same few people over and over again, which is fine, except that I don’t really want them as Facebook friends and they, apparently, don’t want me either or we would have already made that happen. And what’s worse, is that a recently deceased announcer from another station continues to turn up every few days with the clickable link to “add as a friend!” It creeps me out. It’s not right.

A supposed competitor for Facebook has started up and claims to want to pay you to join and bring in friends. After all, it reasons, if Facebook can pull in $20 million a month because of “you,” surely this new site Yuwie.com can afford to spare a few mil. But I have a suspicion that it may be a scam because the only friend requests I’ve had so far are from pimps and hos. Seriously. One pimp and one hooker. And in case you’re wondering, I turned them both down.