Inspired by Facebook

I was on Facebook this morning when I noticed an old friend had written something very interesting on someone's wall. My friends said that he felt he should rename Facebook, "Pastbook," as it had allowed him to re-connect with so many old friends or acquaintances.

That very same friend was the drummer in my first band, my college roommate, my housemate - my very best friend in the whole world. But as it tends to do, life got in the way and before I knew it, 6 or 7 years had gone by since we'd last spoken.

Don't get me wrong, it wasn't that I hadn't tried to get in touch with him. I had moved to Phoenix, AZ, and he'd moved to a small town in the Poconos. I was busy with a growing career and building a family. He was busy with the things in his life, too, and without intending to, we just lost touch.

Until I signed onto Facebook, that is. Facebook had allowed me to reconnect with my friend from the past.

In general, I think the whole social networking thing is a waste of time. But our company is exploring new ways to leverage social networking as a new revenue channel or mechanism to increase traffic through out existing channels. So, I signed up on Facebook to become aware of what it was offering. I was afraid Facebook would be as convoluted a mess as MySpace is, but to my delight, I found Facebook was a much more elegant and - for lack of a better word - mature experience.

In addition to my "research" though, I've begun connecting with old friends and keeping better tabs on my more current friends. Connecting with those old friends has stirred a lot of memories. I've often threatened to write a book about all the crazy things that have happened in my life and with the stirring that has happened, I am even more encouraged to do so.

But then it occurred to me, I could just start telling all those old stories here, on my blog.

Stay tuned.