Late to the game

Though I'm really nothing more than a typical consumer of electronics, I take a certain amount of pride in being an early adopter. I bought my first digital camera, a Canon Powershot A40, in May 2002 (it had 2 megapixels). I bought my first MP3 player in early 2003 (it held 512MB). I bought and still use my excellent 40GB iRiver H140 the following year. And while I still don't own my own Mac, I gave up on Windows in favor of the new Intel Macs more than 2 years ago.

The list of software and Internet services I adopted before every other schmo is even longer: Picasa (way before Google noticed), P2P, Skype, Ceiva, Firefox, Flickr, del.icio.us, and more. Oh, and Blogger: I starting blogging in mid-2002 before most anyone knew what a blog was.

Many of the services I used had a social networking element, especially since Web 2.0 became big 2 years ago, but none of my friends, acquaintances, or family shared my interests enough to convince me social networking worked. Making them work seemed like too much work.

When I heard the buzz about MySpace and Facebook, I was skeptical. Something about the missionary zeal with which people tried to get other to join turned me off. With school out for the summer though, I've been bored, so I signed up for Facebook.

Then, zoom! Within 36 hours I had 14 friends, real friends, people I've fallen out of touch with, people I might not have been able to find otherwise. It's all very exciting. And life-affirming. I mean, I feel so popular.

And now I want you to join. Won't you please join my newfound cult? Please? Everyone's doing it. Even me.