Here’s a pretty good article (actually it’s a Wiki, contributed by several authors) about how you can manage your Facebook profile and friends.

Read this article if:

1. You (you dinosaur, you) are still contemplating whether or not to join Facebook because you’re worried about ‘privacy issues’,
2. You feel that Facebook is “too personal” to link up with colleagues or business partners,
3. You’ve wondered whether or not to “friend” your ex,
4. You’ve had friends who post stories about sexual escapades, drunken moments, and racist comments on your wall,
5. You’re trying to decide if you should “friend” your boss or your boss’ boss

Don’t worry too much about how people judge you from that photo of your college party days back in 1997 or 2002 that recently found it’s way to Facebook through a friend who’s been scanning copies of his/her photo printouts. It shows you’re fun and hey, everyone’s had embarrassing moments.

If you really hate that photo, just un-tag it. Don’t get your panties into a knot just because someone’s posted a picture of you during your younger, wilder days.

Despite what some people think of Facebook (lack of privacy, so very unmanageable, I don’t need the whole world to know about me), and what some companies think of Facebook (for people who have nothing else better to do than post photos and check out other people’s profiles), Facebook is an important networking and marketing tool.

1. It creates a sometimes imagined facade the impression that you are approachable because people now know what books you like to read and what are your favorite shows on tv
2. It helps you keep in touch with old friends and acquaintances (and it never hurts to have an extended network that you can some day tap on)
3. It helps you maintain contact with new friends, customers and acquaintances
4. It gives people an avenue for getting updates about you (whether you’re an individual or a business)
5. It feeds not only your boredom but also your thirst for reading material – Facebook hosts an amazing amount of information that is actually useful at times, via your own friends who share links to articles, blogs, videos, websites, etc.

I can probably think of 100 reasons why you should be on Facebook, but if you have some reasons why you don’t think so, do share them! Or if you can think of other reasons why people should get on to Facebook, share them too!

Update 12 Aug 09, 15:14 hrs SGT: I got this from Zen on Plurk this morning:

I know I’ve said people should not be paranoid about adding their bosses on Facebook, but I guess people who have online verbal diarrhoea and don’t think about where they choose to take a dump should not add their bosses on Facebook.

Then again, they really shouldn’t be allowed anywhere near an internet connection.

She writes about her reasons for not following people on Twitter, citing reasons like their being spammy, sales-oriented, and using Twitter only to broadcast their own blogposts, etc.

Since I don’t use Twitter anymore, I shall write this with Plurk in mind instead.

On Plurk, you can add someone as a friend or a fan. Then, by default, your friend’s Plurks will appear on your timeline. However, you can have the option of whether or not to follow said person’s Plurks. That is, you can be friends with someone, but be sneaky about it, and not follow his/her Plurks, so as not to create enemies (remember, one enemy less is always good), because although his/her Plurks irritate you, frankly, they could still be good friends.

In any case, I now have 149 friends on Plurk, and that is honestly quite a lot of noise, if I were to follow every single person. I estimate that I have (at any one time), unfollowed about 20 Plurkers on my friends’ list, for various reasons. I add some of them back after a while, but some I just cannot be bothered to, for the following reasons:

(1) You are whiny. The number one pet peeve of mine (pertaining to Plurking) is when people only come to Plurk to whine about how horrible their lives are, how depressed they are, etc. At other times, they don’t appear. Or worse, they are constantly there to whine! 28 times a day! Sorry honey, go write it in your personal diary or something. There’s only that many (cozy) emoticons that we can give you.

(2) You use Plurk to spam us. Be it your blog posts, your friend’s blog posts, your friend’s blog shops, your grandmother’s blog, your dog’s website, or your goldfish’s pictures, if all you ever post are links and images and Youtube videos, I am taking you off my timeline.

(3) You Plurk 14 Youtube videos. Consecutively. In different threads. I liken such people to those irritating species on the MRT who blast their music from their handphone speakers, thereby forcing everyone to listen to their choice of music.

(4) You are boring. This is probably the same reason why you I don’t talk to you on MSN anymore.

(5) You are stupid. I am all against discrimination, but there are always exceptions to the rule. I discriminate against stupid people, ignorant people, and most of all, people who talk without running their thoughts through their brains to see if it might possibly be interpreted by others as stupid / senseless / discriminatory / wrong. Of course, said people might not know that those thoughts are stupid because they are stupid. So off they go. I might have followed them just because they are my friends, or my friend’s friend. But stupidity really irks me after a while.

(6) You say something just for the sake of saying something. This is probably a common reason why I unfollow most of the 20 or so people I mentioned earlier. If you have nothing to say, it’s okay not to say anything! Please don’t feel accountable for our entertainment, nor that you absolutely have to Plurk 8 times a day to tell us what you are eating for meals and what bus are you riding on.

(7) I don’t like your face / your personality / you. I’ve only done this to one person before, though.

So what makes you unfollow someone with whom you are friends, or someone whose Plurks you have been following?

An afterthought: Have you also ever unfollowed someone, or muted someone’s threads just because they have irritating friends who reply with nothing but emoticons?

Some people have criticized my way of living and the social life I have, saying that friends online are not real friends. For a while, I believed them, because I was hurt by someone some people whom I met online. But now, I can really say this – that my friends whom I’ve met online are as real as the friends I meet through school or work.

I remember when I was a much younger girl, my parents used to warn me about the strangers I met online. They used to tell me that under no circumstances, I was to meet up with the people I made “friends” with online.

10 years have passed since I first got connected to the internet. 8 years have passed since I first met up with an online friend, at West Mall. His name was Payton. But I digress.

Today, my social life consists mainly of meeting friends from Plurk or Ping.sg for dinner after work, meeting up for coffee, going out with them for a movie or coffee, or desserts, or a meal over the weekend, joining them for Singapore Slingers basketball games at the Indoor Stadium, meeting them at PR-blogger events, having supper with them, or just basically, hanging out.

While some may say that my social life has deteriorated, I beg to differ. I have more than 30 friends whom I talk to on a regular basis (either on Plurk, Facebook, MSN, Gtalk, phone or SMS) and at least 15 whom I meet up with on an equally regular basis. And these people are people with whom I can have interesting and meaningful conversations with, be it about my life, about philosophy, about religion, about current affairs, about the ongoings in their lives, about food, movies or books, or any other interests. With the astounding number of people online, there’s always someone you can talk to about some quirky interest or other.

And I simply love starting threads and taking initiative to meet up with these friends, whether I’ve known them for years, or just a few days, because I enjoy being around people, meeting people and talking to them, listening to them share about their lives and perspectives on certain issues, as well as sharing mine.

What I love is the spontaneity of it all. I could just send out a message, asking, “Anyone wants to meet up for coffee and Scrabble?” and someone would reply. A similar message on any night asking for company over dinner would be responded to by at least one friend willing to meet up. Sometimes more than one person respond, turning what was meant to be a simple meet up into a huge gathering (remember the Plurk gathering at ICB back in November 08?)

Some may find this extremely unusual, but I suppose it’s a habit for me, to meet up with friends from online, and to organize gatherings and outings. It began from the time when I got myself involved in Ping.sg – slowly, I began to organize outings, and then I joined my friend Uzyn in helping him manage community events and activities.

By the time my stint at Ping.sg came to a close, I was already involved in another similar “community” on Plurk.com, which consisted of a lot of people from Ping.sg too. A lot of us were already familiar with one another, and we roped in friends of our own to join in the conversations on Plurk as well.

I don’t find these friendships wrong. Neither do I find them meaningless. Of course there have been mis-steps along the way – I’ve met less-than-nice people, but hey, they are everywhere – online, offline, even in your families! In fact, there are more horrible, poisonous people offline than online! But not all of the people online are creeps, you see?

I’m sure everyone will have a story to share, or will have heard a story, about an online friendship, an online romance that became a dream come true, or about learning from people online, etc. There’s a huge community (which translates into a huge pool of resources) online, and people just have to see that this community is there for some common purpose, to learn something and to share something.

With the ease with which we are able to get connected to the internet these days, it is also no wonder that we make friends with twice the ease, and triple the speed as the good old internetless days. It also means that we keep in touch with friends more often online, than offline. I personally have friends whom I don’t meet often, but whom I talk to regularly online. How do you draw the line between online and offline friends, then?

Truth is, I’m happy to meet people online, because I can judge from their writings before I decide if they would be worth my time to meet up with offline. In fact, I’d really be able to better connect with people who have lives online, too. I said this just 5 days ago, on Monday:

And I stand by what I’ve said. Because this part of my life is so important to me, I will never give it up for anyone. If he loves me, he will accept me for who I am and what I love doing – he will never restrict me in my social life, BUT most of all, I expect him to partake in it too.

Therefore the conclusion that I will most likely end up with someone who is equally as active as I am online, if not more. I just hope that people in my life can understand this, and stop criticizing me about it.

To my online friends: Cheers, to many many more years of friendship, and great conversations, and laughter-filled outings, and discovery of new interests. Cheers to learning, sharing, and helping one another in times of need. And most of all, cheers to US, because we are having the type of fun that some people only dream about!