For those of you who have not opened up a Facebook account yet, I say this: Do it today! As a writer, I can not tell you how great the site is at building new links to your HUBPAGES and increasing your traffic overall. I originally joined Facebook at the urging of a friend of mine who said it was a great networking tool for actors, writers, artists, and etc. I am a relatively inept internet user and thought--I don't know, it's probably complicated and I don't want people having access to everything in my life. Five months later and I am a huge fan. They need to start Facebookers anonymous because I am truly addicted, as is every single one of the people that I have pointed in that direction.

Why I think its better than Myspace.

1. I find it simpler to set up pages, download pictures, set up links, and access its applications.

2. People who join must use their real names. This is key when you want to find old friends, long lost family members, and dare I say it: old crushes (giggle)--Come on you know you are curious about them! It also ensures that you don't have to view countless profiles of people who have given themselves ridiculous nicknames such as Lusciouskiss, StudMuffin, or RedneckLovin'. Let's not even discuss how many "SexEPrincesses" can be found on Myspace. I don't want to have work that hard at finding people from my past and I don't want to have to scour through people whom I have nothing in common with either. 

3. There are several ways to find people: You can access your address book and find people you email, search for someone by name alone, search people by high school and graduation dates as well as college name and graduation dates. Facebook also puts links to people who you may know by showing you friends of your friends (sort of like the 7 degrees of separation idea).

4. There are lots of great applications to play with and they add more everyday. Some popular applications amongst my group of friends are: Pillow Fight, Pass a Round of Drinks, Birthday list and Create a Card or Gift, Kidnapped (Kidnap a friend just for fun), MusicIlike which lets you link to Youtube for your favorite songs/videos, and of course all of the green applications  which when passed on to friends contributions are made to green causes, cancer research and etc.

5.   There are lots of groups to join like fan clubs for your favorite actors and actresses, musicians, television programs, sports teams and etc.  I haven't looked up writing groups yet because I am too busy goofing off with the music applications and catching up with my old friends from high school.  I am sure their has to be one.

6.    You can instant message friends directly on the site.  Love that feature.

7.   You can set your privacy settings to be as low or as rigid as you like.  Block out people or allow the world to access your pages, it is totally up to you.   

8.   You can post links to your HUBPAGES, blogs, or favorite sites right on your profile!  Increase hits to your posts instantly.  Its a great way to increase traffic.

I am sure there lots more wonderful things I can say about Facebook, but I think I will just close this hub for now and go sign on myself!   Meet me there!  Become a friend fellow hubbers!   Hope to see you there.