After looking high and low, I found my British friend Catherine in the most unlikely of places, the internet. I started to look on Facebook, the new and improved MySpace and leagues ahead of Friendster, which hangs on by a sliver of popularity.
As soon as I arrive to London, my flat mate and my girlfriend plan a housewarming party and sent the invitations via Facebook. My flat mate, Jeff, tells me I should use the highly interactive cyber popularity contest program to receive an electronic invite. Initially, I am not opposed to receiving an invitation via the web when it involves my flat mate, whom I see regularly and speak to daily, but I am not keen on signing up for yet another internet friend site. Is MySpace and Friendtser not enough?
Jeff explains that ‘everyone in London is on Facebook’ and that its stalking capabilities make it a marked improvement over Friendster and MySpace. According to The London Paper in early August, when Facebook was brought up in a copy write infringement lawsuit involving the creator of MyUniversity, London has 400,000 Facebook users. I gave in, hoping it would be the easy way to find my long lost friend Catherine. If you look closely, I have the same profile on all three sites.
I do a simple search for Catherine since we do not have any friends in common using Facebook. I get close to 25 different women all with the exact first and last name. I look through all of their limited profiles and scrutinize the small photo attached. I narrow the field immediately by only looking at Catherine’s in the United Kingdom, which takes away about five women. 20 left. I then eliminate UK undergraduate students, which left me with about eight Catherine profiles. With those eight, I use the poke feature to let them know I am here.
Facebook has a function where you can poke a person, which drops them a note that someone wants your attention, but there is no message or reason explaining the poke. It is a bit annoying, now that I have used the various applications, because poking can go back and forth without an end. A friend from Kunming, China, poked me and we poked each other for three rounds before I stop reciprocating; and not once in that whole session did we write each other a message.
After poking eight Catherines, I think I have found the right Catherine based on a small photo of a woman studying for her graduate degree at York University. I focus on her pink hoodie, which is over her head, and the wavy blond hair strands peaking out. Based on the hair, I have found a match. I write Catherine a message explaining who I am, just in case she forgot my name over the years, my London summer plans and how we taught in Shanghai together.
I wait close to a week for a response.
In the meantime, I am befriending a whole new set of people, mostly from London. After our housewarming party, many of my girlfriend and flat mate’s classmates “friend me.” I also receive invitations to join or download different applications, such as Create your own Zombie and bite your friends, personalize a world map with the countries I have visited, take a movie test and find out which of my friends I am most compatible with and the list goes on.
Facebook allows users to create an application and freely distribute it to anyone. Each time a friend adds a new application to their profile, I get an update. Actually, that is exactly what makes this whole friending process a stalking exercise, as my flat mates explains. It writes up to the minute reports of exactly who my friends are befriending, what applications they are downloading, who is giving them a cyber gift, what profile changes are being made and newly uploaded photos.
All that encourages users to visit frequently to explore different applications, stalk friends or friends’ of friends and update folks on what’s happening. Unlike Freindster, with little or no interaction once you befriend someone or MySpace, which seems to focus on having a personalized profile page complete with background music, wallpaper, photos flying in from all corners of the screen and advertising the conversation lists between you and 400 of your closest friends, Facebook has a simple profile page with added games, programs and interactions. Each well known program is an improvement with the user in mind.
I remember when Friendster first made an appearance when I was an undergraduate student, eight years ago. It was slowly catching on and it was fun to show-off your friend circle to the wider cyber community. Then MySpace came along and allowed the user to personalize the profile space by adding music, visuals and publicizing the exchange between friends. Now, it is Facebook’s turn. Facebook has opened up the forum for what users want by allowing user created applications for public use and trying to keep it more intimate by listing the details of your friend’s interactions. This of coarse is all in the eyes of the beholder, since I believe it enables users to obsess over friends.
After about six days waiting for Catherine to respond, I suddenly became an expert in Facebook. I befriended 40 new friends and download every application my friends invite me to use. Then, I got a response back from the grad student at York University and it plainly said, “I am not that Catherine from Shanghai.”
Damn.
It is back to the drawing board. I look up her parents in Marlboro, Wiltshire County and found 20 families with Catherine’s last name listed in the British Telecommunications (BT) phonebook. I start to hash out a script to explain my reason for calling and the likelihood I would get many people thinking I am a crazy. When I came to England three years ago, Catherine took me out to visit her parents and see Avebury, so I was hoping that if I get a hold of them, I could get through to Catherine.
As I figure out the best way to call so many strangers, I decided to call Catherine’s old work office. Her old email address was with a firm called Martin Anderson Wood and she worked in the Windsor branch three years ago. So, I call them and the receptionist explains that Catherine has moved to the London branch. Bingo!
I call the London branch and I explain to the receptionist I am a friend of Catherine’s from Shanghai. Two minutes later I am talking to Catherine. We do our general catching up and I tell her it has been a long road to find her.
This private investigation true story has a stalking tone to it; using an on-line friend program, referring to the phone book and tracking through an old office workplace, but I call that resourceful.
Oh, and Catherine is on Facebook. Her viewable profile to strangers is too vague, it excludes a location, so I eliminated her in the first round.
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