Like most social websites, Facebook is the place where everyone wants to be. Dropping out of Orkut for reasons that cannot be mentioned, after much confrontation with the blue and white screen, I decided to see what made Facebook so special. I signed up hesitantly and was greeted by lots of people and advertisements.

Uploading my contact file, I immediately gathered around 30 people on my friend's list. Then came the nasty business of adding people I knew, but had no wish to add. Sigh! Still, I did.

Out popped family members living abroad with whom I had virtually no contact, except for a couple of phone calls once a year. Browsing through their profiles I was stunned to see how much they had changed since I last saw them. And despite everything, it pained me, because I would've changed in their eyes too. Five minutes spent in being melancholic!

There was much to do, and so little time. Updating profiles was one heck of a job, as I suddenly didn't feel like sharing anything.

Privacy settings had to be adjusted to avoid countless greetings polluting my account. A cluster of “Requests” were sent to me the very next day, ranging from unknown alien's friendship requests to applications of different kinds. Ah!

The application invite option was the worst thing I found. Being bombarded with around 20 requests per day forced me to block these little things. Sometimes, the quizzes were fun to play with, as I had never imagined a questionnaire to be so amusing. Unlike Orkut, everything was much, much safer though I had no intention of relaxing any privacy setting. The “Notifications” poured in each day, reminding me of this and that. The 'People You May Know' tab was interesting, yet I never use it.

Strangely enough, the groups on Facebook were thought-provoking, and some could literally make you laugh out loud.

On discussion boards and forums, apart from a few twits, there was no anonymity amongst users, and each was proud of where they came from. The best groups were, “You Know You're from/ grew up in (that place) When...”, “Actually NO~ I am not attempting to impress you with my eloquent vocabulary”, “No, I Don't Care If I Die At 12AM, I Refuse To Pass On Your Chain Letter”. These groups were more or less like “Pages” where fans could write lovely fan mail on the celebrity/politician/book/product's “Wall” (i.e. scrapbook). These were really, or rather brightening. The News Feed option kept me updated on whatever my friends were doing or up to. These acted as spy-holes, and sometimes got so madly infuriating that to hide my stories, I had to spend hours deleting them from my Mini Feed.

New things are added on Facebook from time to time. The cute little widget of “Chat” was never used, because no one wanted to be caught online on FB, in the wee hours of the night.

The best thing about Facebook is that it's really diverse. You have all types of people coming in from almost every corner of the globe and so it is no longer hard to keep up with the world. One look at your Facebook page and you can see what every 'Friend' of yours around the world has been up to. So far my mouse hasn't once moved towards the “Deactivate my account”.