How many friends??????

This definitely warrants my time as my first real post!

I stumbled across this article which discusses the amount of close friends and acquaintances a person has and how this has increased with the development of social networking sites such as myspace, facebook, etc. The numbers are astounding!!

I often make fun at my wife for all of the time she spends on these sites mentioned in the article above. She literally has hundreds upon hundreds of friends (more like acquaintances) with who she keeps up to speed on through facebook and myspace. This is the only way she can keep up with who is getting married, who is pregnant, who bought what, ect, ect, ect.

Recently, I began to understand why she spends all this time on these sites. Now, before you start making up your mind that I am socially and technologically backwards, let me explain. I have been a part of facebook and myspace for quite a few years now. When I met my wife for the first time through a friend, it was online and we talked for hours upon hours for over a week before we saw each other face-to-face. But recently, I have spent more time on my facebook site, searching for old acquaintances and such. I found my best friend from elementary school who moved away, old crushes, old 'bullies', ect.

According to this article, people have increased their casual friends from the traditional 150. Think of the effects that this could have on the way we market to our Members, customers, what-have-you. The effect it would have if one of your Members/customers were to send a message on facebook to all 675 of his/her friends, letting them know of the service they have received from you. Oh the potential!!!