deguia.net » Online Communities

Facebook and High School Reunions

Daniel — Wed, 12 Aug 2009 19:56:17 +0000

Our local newspaper, The Press Democrat, ran a story yesterday titled “Fewer surprises at reunions thanks to Facebook” which brought up the same thing I wrote about back in February (The New High School Reunion?).

The Press Democrat’s article approached the issue more from the idea of how Facebook can help former classmates organize their high school reunion:

Santa Rosa High’s Tais Tillman used Facebook to rattle the cages of some particularly slow to excite classmates before (8/8)Saturday’s 20-year reunion. She used “status updates” on her personal page to urge people to pay for their tickets, to rally friends, to get excited in general.

“I’d get comments like, ‘Thanks for the stalking, it made me feel wanted,’” she said.

But Tillman, who was student body secretary, also warned against relying totally on technology to reach classmates. Santa Rosa’s graduating class of 1989 was about 550 strong, about 100 of whom Tillman reached on Facebook.

Source: The Press Democrat: Fewer surprises at reunions thanks to Facebook

Thought I’d share the article because I think it’s an interesting topic.

Two Sides To Every Story

Daniel — Wed, 29 Jul 2009 23:50:22 +0000

My mom uses Twitter. “Uses” in the sense that she lurks without posting anything. Today she received a crash course in one of the pitfalls of Twitter: to get the full idea of what’s being said, many times you have to follow both parties involved in a Twitter conversation.

Earlier today @BusyDadBlog asked:

Curious – for those of you with kids around 7 yrs of age. How much freedom do you give your kids re: allowance spending?

What concerned my mom was that she only saw my response and wasn’t aware of the context:

@BusyDadBlog Our 8 yr old has pretty much full freedom, with the understanding that we retain Veto rights when it will be a true waste of $

As every good Grandma does, she paniced and asked me what I meant by that Twitter posting. I was able to explain and put her sudden fear of having raised a son who grew up to be a tremendously lousy father at ease.

Thank you, Web 2.0, for scaring the bejeezus out of my mother, even when I no longer live under her roof.

Twitter Me This, Twitter Me That

Daniel — Tue, 27 Jan 2009 20:15:55 +0000

I’ve been using Twitter for a while now and everytime I mention it to someone who isn’t down with the Tweets inevitably asks “What the hell is Twitter?!”

Another inevitability is that the second I open my mouth to try and explain it I turn into a combination of Lenny from “Of Mice and Men” and Timmy from South Park.

This is where David Seah came to the rescue. In his recent blog post, he explained why he likes Twitter which, oddly enough, explains why many people like Twitter:

…it offers a good balance of chatter and informal connection during the day. Unlike email, chat, instant messaging or Facebook, Twitter allows me to just skim the surface of what’s going on in the world, and I can participate back without having to invest a lot of time writing. The 140-character limit to each “tweet” is also good for me, as I tend to run really long in the prose department.

So there you have it. If you’re down with the Tweets, follow me @deguia