Scoble is a facebook wh*re

Here’s the problem with opening up Facebook to the public, they don’t get it. Robert Scoble (who I’m a huge fan of) is bragging about his Facebook friend network:

(in two weeks I’ve already gathered more than 600 friends).

Back in my day, the reason why people used Facebook was to enhance real life connections. Examples: staying in touch with high school classmates, keep track of friends’ birthdays, plan real life events, etc. As Facebook opens up, it reminds me more & more of MySpace.

UPDATE: Check out Scoble’s response. I can buy that, he certainly does have a unique way of interacting with his readers. What other bloggers do you know who have dinner with their readers?

UPDATE 2: Chris Fleming seems to agree with the original point I made. Check out his comment on Scobleizer:

I almost added you as a friend, in fact I got as far as hitting the add friend button. Then I decided against it.

The point of Facebook (for me at least) is that a Friend is a real friend, I can put things up on Facebook that I wouldn’t necessarily want members of the public to see.

This is for personal relationships, it’s about meeting up with friends, and staying in touch with friends, and the sharing of things with friends.

UPDATE 3: Scoble is up to 1300 Facebook friends.

UPDATE 4: Teresa also finds Scoble silly:

Basically, Facebook is wonderful because it creates virtual maps of actual, real-world connections. It’s just like LinkedIn because it assumes that when someone becomes friends with someone else, they are endorsing that person. A friend request is a request for an endorsement. It’s a way to reach out and say, “hey, tell the world that I’m really an OK person.”