I was friended today by an internet pal I’ve known since the dawn of my first website back in 2001. He sent the friend request and in it was a little message saying he just joined Facebook and that I popped up in his sidebar and he didn’t know why.

Having been a member of Facebook for longer than five minutes, one thing I could explain was that the ‘People You Might Know’ thing displays people based on who you have as mutual friends. Right?

Well I checked my friend’s seven-person (and growing) friends list to find that there was nobody on there that I had ever been Facebook friends with. Odd, but no biggie and off I surfed.

Well just now I was in Facebook and a familiar face appeared in my sidebar. I was positive I had seen the face before but wasn’t sure where and opened up her friends list to see who we both know. The answer? Nobody! Then I remembered where I’d seen her face it was in a funny video about eating some crazy ice cream desert with corn in it in Asia, I think. Her face must have stuck in my mind because of her reaction to the bite she took… it was pretty funny. She was not impressed.

But this raises some questions… why did this person appear in the ‘People You Might Know’ sidebar? Why did I appear in my old friend’s friend suggester thing? I don’t have any mutual friends with either of these people. What does Facebook know and how the hell do they know it??

There’s just something creepy about this whole thing. Anyone know how ‘The FB Machine’ works on this matter?

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I’ve been using Twitter a lot lately to follow what’s been happening in Haiti with Hands On, the volunteer organisation I’ll be joining in a week and a bit. They’ve embraced Twitter in a big way and following their updates has been a great way to keep on top of what’s happening over there and what I can expect. I think I like it.

Before this litter revelation I had been a bit confused by Twitter in a similar way I had been baffled by blogs before I started one. With blogs, I couldn’t figure out why anyone would want to read about the mundane, day to day exploits of other people. With Twitter I couldn’t figure out why anyone would want to read about the mundane, hour to hour exploits of other people.

I now see both as great tools for communicating and connecting with other people. Twitter is much newer to me so I’m still not sure how to use it to my advantage. It seems like it’s possible to connect with people on Twitter that you probably would never have been able to get in touch with in other ways. Plus you never know who’s reading and opportunities might drop into your lap as a result of your Twitter use.

So I’m jumping on the bandwagon and will updating my Twitter feed thing as much as I can. With a trip to Haiti in the near future, I’m pretty sure I’ll be able to keep the updates at least a little bit interesting so feel free to follow along on Twitter.

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