I took this exercise an an opportunity to mess around with Facebook like I've been wanting to. I already have a Livejournal account, a MySpace account, a Care2 account, a bloglines account, and this blog, so setting up an account with yet another social networking site seemed a bit silly...but I wanted an excuse to do it anyway!
As far as social networking goes, I can definitely see why FB came in first! Whereas livejournal and MySpace can end up dedicated to memes and community drama, FB seems like more of a grown-up site. No sparkly page lay-outs, no "My 100 favoritest things ever!" quizzes - just straight out contact information and facts about the user. (Though you can customize parts of your profile with shiny bits of code to personalize it.) I have to admit that I was a little taken aback by how much contact information you can make available to the public - take that with the fact that you can also use FB as something of a matchmaking service, and this is definitely not a site teens should be allowed to use unsupervised. Of course, there is always the option to keep things like phone number, addresses, and various chat client names hidden from everyone but your friends...but teens are not famous for being very discriminating about who they make friends with online. (Check out a few MySpace accounts from the friends list for the Loft's MySpace page - a lot of these kids have upwards of 200 random users listed as "friends" in their accounts...heck, the loft itself has over 400 friends!) Still, before I bash this site too much for its potential creepiness factor, I should check if there are any age-based restrictions in place - it could be that I only have the option to toss all of my personal info out on the web because I'm supposed to be old enough to know better.
The possibilities for library use are endless - the potential networking among staff and patrons, the ways libraries could use the "notes" options, the professional yet personalized feel of the site overall - these all fit the feel of a library much better than Livejournal or MySpace. I could see it being used for book clubs, book reviews, public opinion polls/discussions, ways of sharing information in the system or out of the system with other libraries...and, of course, as a way to give librarians and libraries a more personal feel for those who like meeting folks online.