I was Poked by a Friend

on the Social Graph!!!

Is that legal? Is it consentual?

This week's edition of Newsweek contains an instightful article on Facebook.com and the power of social networking, or what Facebook creater Mark Zuckerberg calls the "social graph" in our lives, social world, and the global marketplace/21stcenturyreality. You can read it HERE.

Mark expects every human being on our shared planet to soon be an inetgrated part of the facebook world (granted in my life-experience I know many folks who won't make the evolutionary jump...they already have enough problems with their BETA machines!) I find it amazing how technology - facebook, myspace, etc. can not necessarily create connections (although the Newseek article proves me wrong) but can reinforce and deepen existing and emerging relationships. When we're so busy commuting to and from work, multi-tasking while we prepare dinner, create a spread sheet on our blackberry in line for a triple no-foam latte at Pete's while reading the paper...maybe such online social networking is the natural progression of relationships...or at least communication that can be so foundation and formative for relationships in a post-911, globalized, mutlicultural world?

I don't have a philisophical answer...but I'm hooked. Does that mean that I'm a geek if I'm always wondering who has contacted me, or what old friend I can rediscover on facebook - even if they're now living in a cave in Katmandu? Is it adultery if you're excited - even in your heart- by being poked by a stranger, or better yet an old friend?