I noticed that a couple of my ww-colleagues start-off their posts with a location (press release-looky) and I find it rather interesting, and I'm going to do just that!

Jianguomenwai Avenue -  Nice start, but frankly speaking that's where our office is located at. And I doubt I had this thought while I was in the office though, but let's carry on anyway.

I'm writing to challenge myself regarding my journey on Facebook. Yes, Facebook. I try my best to keep myself up-to-date with posts and forums that's been exchanged and challenged on the web such as via TechCrunch among many others, but the web's is just so crowded and I'm very sure somewhere along the road I may have missed important debates or discussions about what's hot and what's not. Hence, if there's any misleading or inaccurate mentions, please do drop me a comment or an email and I'll be more that happy to make amendments and keep the conversation going.

So, back to Facebook. I remember participating in a poll-post written by Michael Arrington many months back. Michael's idea was to gauge readers' instant feedback on two happening topics: iPhone and Facebook. I can remember my response, crystal clear - enough already.

And that was before Facebook was open to the world. Now that I'm part of the Facebook clan, I find myself becoming more and more 'distant' from the community. I felt burdened whenever I signed-in and noticed a looooong list of invites to join causes (e.g. political and the what nots), drink margaritas, see how alike I am with a friend, manage my reputation, telling me to retaliate because my zombie is being attacked, and invitations to parties that's sent by a friend all the way from UC Berkeley (Simon, I'm talking about you!) asking me to attend some music festival - a friend that's usually smart enough to know that there's no way I can attend because I'm all the way here, in Beijing, China - working.

I also remember the first day receiving an invite to join Facebook from Shuk (a friend who's currently devoting her life to working full-time and traveling/conquering all Southeast Asian countries before she turns 30). Matt, a Minnesotan friend, added me, and subsequently wrote an aloha note on my wall. Without any hesitation, I promptly replied him on the 'same wall', saying thanks and asking him how's it going with Bush and when will his next visit to Asia be. Few seconds after, he replied me on my wall, saying, "dearie darling, you're not really supposed to write on your own wall!" - fueling me with a little embarrassment I must admit.

Few months passed by and like everyone else, I felt obligated to accept friends that are 'not really' friends; go through the process of adding applications only to receive nasty-sarcastic wall-posts saying "Oy, your Facebook is so crowded my browser hung trying to load it" (when I only had a garden full of flowers and sheep, two walls, 30+ eggs, 25+ plants), carefully pick and select which photos should or shouldn't be made available etc.

It almost felt like Second Life in peril - I was stressed-out online.

I even had a good friend IM-ing me all of a sudden asking for help - support him in winning a 'fight' against another friend - all on Facebook. And we haven't been talking much and I thought he wanted to catch-up - oooops.

Two weeks ago, my colleague in Kuala Lumpur, whom I've closely worked with and we sincerely regard each other as friends; suddenly disappeared from the Facebook radar. I noticed this because through the sidebar, the number of friends I have from the Hill & Knowlton network went down. The next thing I knew, I was IM-ing with other KL colleagues, and we were literally discussing what's up with her and started feeling gravely concerned over her 'disappearance' and self-removal from Facebook. Well, she's back on it now and no one ever dared to ask her why. Run along.

I don't know if I'll be moving on from Facebook anytime soon, but I can honestly say that I'm bored with its offerings and would love to try something fresh. Without any doubt, Facebook is a very powerful make-or-break social-networking platform, bringing together interests, politicians, businesses, sporting fans - you name it, it's on Facebook.

I also love the fact that I am able to interact with my ww-colleagues (I just 'met' Mattia Sorbi, a colleague based in Milan) and exchange ideas and just about everything else. I am also painfully in love with the wall (just the wall) because it's such a brilliant application, it works like a magic-wand that I never had.

But I don't know what else am I using Facebook for other than the wall, friends and my colleagues. But perhaps those are enough to keep me around. I have self-exiled from adding anymore applications, even if it means interacting with a friend through that application. Also, there's no way I'm ever going to go through the pain of importing and exporting any of my new friends on Facebook to Friendster, and similarly make them go through the same pain. I even tried integrating all my social networks in one (there is such app, i.e. Fuser, I signed-up the moment it was available but the performance wasn't impressive so I moved on within 3 sign-ins, losing patience even for beta, I guess) , but it just didn't work for me. I'm still doing research on that and I might be able to write about it soon.

While writing this post, I just joined a group called Mobile Monday Beijing on Facebook, thanks to my colleague Ivana who just joined.

So, no, despite my consumer-grunts, I'm not moving on just yet. I think I'm staying on till the credits begin to roll - if it ever does.