Facebook Paralysis

I have been neglecting my Facebook page lately to the point where I am not really sure what to do about it.  When I first started using Facebook, I let it read my address book and so immediately I got a bunch of online "friends", and over time about a dozen or so real world friends, and maybe an equal number of business associates have joined my list of Facebook friends, as have a number of Buzz people from here.  In addition, I tend to accept most "friend request" I get from people I don't know, and for me a number of them seem to hail from India plus I have some of the people .  The problem is none of these people have the slightest thing in common so my thread there is really weird to read - at best: uninteresting and irrelevant to where my life is right now, at worst: psychotic.


Last night, I went to Facebook and found it to be a disturbing experience.  The first post I saw was a rant about some horrible child molester from Nothern California.  Fair enough, people need to vent about these things sometimes, but the poster - a woman I had me online, (but not in person) on a dating site went on to say how pathetic it was that the "bleeding hearts" wouldn't want to execute the guy.  Now I happen to be in favor of the death penalty - and I might have wanted to execute this guy, but I didn't like the way she linked "child molester" to "bleeding heart" as she has posts like this all the time - you know, where something incredibly evil or stupid happens, and it is "the liberals" fault.  When one of her friend jumped in with with another attack on those child molester loving bleeding hearts I jumped in with a post defending people who don't believe in the death penalty - even though I am not one of them.  Well, my "friend" came back to defend her friend, and I don't think anyone enjoyed the exchange.


Well that didn't go real well, so I went to the next post in my stream.  This one was from a social media consultant who does have an inactive account here on Buzz, but is far more active on Facebook.  She had a  post that said simply *Google's Days are Numbered* and nothing else - presumably because of the "Facebook Groups" announcement that was made yesterday.   Well I am no Google fanboy, but I fired back that it was a ridiculous statement, and she fired back something about her not being a Fanboy for Facebook but that I should know that "Google Buzz had failed".  A few more back and forths like this, and I don't think either of us enjoyed the exchange either.


So this was not so much the feeling of being part of a "social network" as it of a guy stumbling around at a party where everyone had clustered into different groups, and then listening into their conversation and shouting something - maybe even getting into an argument, and then moving to the next group and doing the same thing.  It is a party that I don't like, and where I do not fit in.


I have some disagreements with the way Google has done things on Buzz, but I am especially concerned that they seem to have been out outmaneuvered by Facebook.  That Facebook would beat them to the punch with their new "groups" function, especially giving that Google has its own perfectly serviceable "Google Groups" product, is astounding.  Is my "friend" right?  Are "Google's days numbered" and has "Buzz been a failure"?


So the situation is this -  just as I am about to leave the party at Facebook, the host brings out a new punchbowl for the guests, and here at the Google Buzz party, at least right now, the punchbowl is empty.