About a month ago I joined Facebook at the suggestion of a friend. (Prior to this a former co-worker had been pestering me to join but I (along with a bunch of others) kept teasing him that Facebook was for people in High School.

Anyway, I signed up and I am not sure what exactly kept me going back (perhaps it’s the ability to adopt a pet crab:P), but I am an active user, though I have yet to engage in any of the various War games (parking wars, mob wars, etc) though I guess it is only a matter of time.

One fringe benefit of this is if you fill in your High School (and college) info, former classmates start showing up in a side bar, and you can add them as a friend and if they add you back you can than see their profile info (among other things).

I am sure anyone that has an email address has received an email from Classmates.com. They reel you in slowly….create a profile and catch up with old classmates! Except then you couldn’t email them unless you upgraded to premium service (aka pay money $$). Then started expanding…answer 4 questions in your profile, and we’ll let see those profile answers for other classmates. But they still wanted you to pay $$ to see more details. And the site is littered with ads.

Facebook is a nice clean white space… unless you fill up your profile! There are ads, but they are unobtrusive, though they change with each page load.

The one advantage Classmates may have is in organizing your reunion… you can hit everyone that has joined with 1 mass email (regardless of who is “friends” with who)… although any emails I get from Classmates are automatically flagged as SPAM, and end up in the trash :P