There is no way you could describe this section as a ‘gallery’, it’s just not what I wanted or saw when I began to plan the blog, and lord I’ve built enough of them online over the years, no this was always going to be different. Here yes you will see the finished artwork, but I wanted all the support work to be shown as well, the sketches, the paths that didn’t work as well as I’d hoped, the techniques I used and learned along the way. And most of all the ‘why’ – the rational for the work, what it means to me, and what I hope you see when you cast your eyes over it for the first time – click here to visit ‘The Art’

I've always had a love of Photography, right from my earliest days working on The Times, and as the art has become so much more important to me, so I've found myself drawn more and more into it's clutches - click here to read more

FACEBOOK, A THOUGHT OR TWO ABOUT THIS SOCIAL MEDIA STUFF

Funny old week really, chatting about the best way to use Facebook with friends and students and seeing the imminent floatation has got me thinking, is Facebook growing up and becoming mainstream, or is it going to go the way of friendsreunited?

Not really sure when I got into the whole Facebook thing, I think it was when I came back from Edinburgh after my tour , it seemed the perfect way in which to keep up with the lads, many of whom I knew I’d never see again. Before I knew it I’d also added all my old work mates from my ‘Times’ days, a few family members and a sprinkling of old staff from Cre8 , oh and the ‘outlaws’, bad move that last one. Over the last couple of years I’ve, I suppose, used it most days, and to be honest felt rewarded by the whole thing, but just lately I’ve been given reason to think I may have to change my habits a little.

I suppose it all started a week or two ago when during a lesson on blogging my students successfully managed to sidetrack me onto the whole Facebook v civil rights thing, don’t get any ideas about deep thoughts of impending government cyber action, no this was about the fact that the Uni had banned Facebook in certain areas as many students trying to find a Mac to work on were unsuccessful because all were being used for Facebook. Well as the whole debate moved around the room it morphed into a debate on the best use for Facebook, all started I might add by one student who let on that he had over 3,500 friends, yes you read that correctly, and yes I, like you thought that he couldn’t possibly know all these people. He didn’t, well yet, you see he was using 2 Facebook accounts, one for friends, and one for networking in the fashion industry; very successfully I might add as he now has at least 3 firm job offers, not bad for a mediocre 2nd year student.

And then after that debate a close friend chatting about having to set up 2 accounts caught my interest. Oh, for networking I ask? No rather it’s because of the range of his friends, now I was confused. Toby, retired actor turned policeman and part-time soldier was having the dilemma of not saying much at all on the site for fear of offending one group or the other, interesting as I say. I could see his point though, as a single parent with young kids he’d only last week posted a picture of his latest plaiting efforts on Tiger Lilly’s hair, cries of “wonderful” came from the acting and family side, “gay twat” came from the police and squaddie fraternity by way of a reply. Yes I could see the dilemma, and mores the point I also needed to start curbing my squaddie like babblings, or ditch the ‘outlaws’ amongst others as friends.

In the Evening Standard the following day was an interesting article about, amongst other things, the forthcoming flotation of Facebook, harping on about the perceived price and hence valuation of the company, bigger than Apple Mac they say, amazing, and I might add rather worrying. I was drawn back to the valuation and subsequent sale of ‘Friendsreunited’ , well that went well didn’t it, within 12 months the site was all but dead, not I may add because of the sale, rather to do with the fact that we, the public, are fical, and had decided to move on to the next ‘must have’ trend. And in the same article they were badgering us to increase our privacy settings, citing the many who had lost their jobs for being indiscreet on the site, talking about bosses, or employers.

All very worrying really, at the weekend I changed my privacy settings, culled some friends, and I might add the ‘outlaws’, went back through my ‘timeline’ to check that I’d not been inadvertently releasing national secrets to the world. Made sure I’d got all my friends mobile numbers, just in case the whole thing went down the tube after the flotation and tried to work out if I needed to network at all. Which all left me feeling that somehow, like a great many things in life, the whole Facebook thing was just so much more fun before it grew up and became all a little to serious.  

Posted by Brent Meheux - 6/2/12 - Tags - facebook, friendsreunited, social media

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