The Facebookers

I still remember that moment when I realized the intrusion of Facebook, a social-network website, on my life. It was the moment when a Friend I haven't met for five years (but was on my facebook list of friends) knew my day-to-day, event-by-event , whereabouts- and recited every details when we met. It inadvertently felt I have a stalker- a compulsory accessory for being a celebrity- but hardly the nicest feeling in the world.

If you wish to become stalked as well, there is a way. Join Facebook ! For an-obviously- laudable purpose of writing this article, your correspondent decided to sign up and become a facebooker approximately six months ago.

If anything, becoming a facebooker has notified your correspondent that we are all equal : equally liking to do the same stuffs (can't wait for the weekends and long weekends is a common "status update") ; equally whining about the same problem (getting stuck in traffic, the rain pouring down). It is also enabling your correspondent to confirm one of his suspicion: that those non working ibu-ibu arisan are using their BlackBerry for facebooking !

Your correspondent could be wrong, but it does appear slightly unlikely that the ibu-ibu arisan will become BlackBerry's celebrity pitchman, advertising their product (a recent article in the New York Times discussed how President Obama is currently BlackBerry's best marketing spokesperson, for embodying the values of a great communicator and a networker. Imagine the slogan: "The President has to have this to keep in touch").

Indeed there is anecdotal evidence - I just like this expression, remnant of the old days as a management consultant-that the increasing visibility of BlackBerry devotees in Indonesia is linked to the willingness to keep connected and networked, to be able to find out what friends, colleagues are doing; to satisfy the seemingly insatiable appetite to find old friends (and old flames?). Plenty high school and university reunions have been facilitated by Facebook. It looks like that BlackBerry have suddenly found , in Facebook, the ideal partner to expand their market in Indonesia, well beyond the standard "surgically attached to their hip" professionals. Facebookers of the world, unite !