BFF vs FFF

So I am fascinated by the way that the social networks have dominated much of our thinking and indeed how pervasive they are. Yesterday I attended a family event in France with a large amount of my relatives there were 4 generations represented. It was quite a show.

However the biggest topic of conversation was how we could all continue to maintain our relationships given that we were highly disparate. The family is now spread from Sydney to Seattle and all points in between. Most of us are now connected via Facebook so we will continue to expand that link.

Now it struck me that these are real family and BFFs – we grew up together. A lot of shared experiences. Good or bad they are real.

At the same time – I have become increasingly aware of a new class of person - I call them FFFs or Faux Friend Followers. These are the people who try to link to you and also follow you on Twitter. These are people who actually benefit from being your “friend” and in your “network”. I admit that I have probably linked to people in the past in order to enhance the value of my own network. But I have lately tried to be judicious about this. I am trying to personally ask with a personalized message rather than … link to me….

So I am going to be pretty hard about FFFs. For my personal relationships – I will maintain a tight control. For a public persona – perhaps I wont be quite so picky and choosy. But just because we are linked doesn’t make us BFFs.

So what about your relationships? Is this the same for you?

I might use this as my next poll topic

Cheers