There have been a lot of articles about Facebook in the news lately.

Some writers are suggesting that Facebook will be (or already is) the next big thing in the Internet world. As everyone knows, Google purchased YouTube for a massive mountain of cash. It seems likely that Facebook is attaining a similar level of attention and speculative value due to its popularity.

Of course that kind of popularity and value attracts problems as well as opportunities. The creator(s) of Facebook are currently being sued by some fellow Harvard students who claim their ideas were stolen.

There are also those associated with other prominent sites and applications that want to build a relationship with Facebook. WordPress has released some kind of plugin that allows users to connect their WordPress blogs with Facebook - though the plugin only works for WordPress.com users. This leaves me wondering if a way will be developed for other WordPress users (such as myself).

Because Facebook is getting so much attention, I registered and checked around a little. One of the interesting applications was that Facebook was able to use my Gmail contact list to look for people I already know who have Facebook accounts.

I also found that there’s a “Bloggernacle” category that’s been created within Facebook and so it was fairly easy to find and connect with the LDS bloggers who have signed themselves up as part of that group.

Many of the Facebook features remind me of LinkedIn - it seems to be a very convenient and easy way to find people you’ve known from the past - whether they attended the same high school or university, worked at the same business, lived in the same place, shared the same interest, etc. Also, if you know someone and you share the same friends, it becomes easy to add those shared contacts/friends to your own list.

I wonder though if this is the kind of site where you register, play around a bit, and then not bother going back. Or perhaps it is the kind of site that invites only occasional and casual interaction - unlike email or other applications that a person will use daily.

Note: Matt Mullenweg wrote “I’m really enjoying Pownce” so I signed up for an invite to give it a try.  Now I have six more invites I can offer to others.  So if you want to try it out, let me know in the comments or via email.  Honestly, it just strikes me as one more social networking program.

Diane and I went to listen to the New York Philharmonic orchestra in Central Park last night. Someone was kind enough to take a picture for us.

As you can see in the background, everyone shows up and spreads their blankets on the ground. It’s just about the best picnic experience you could ask for.

This performance of the philharmonic orchestra was originally scheduled for last week, but it was rained out. The weather was a little bit better this time around.

This blog isn’t looking very well of late.  Stuff is broken.  And I’m not feeling very energetic but at some point problems will need to be addressed.

So I thought I’d make a list of things to fix:

1)  The asides category - needs to be reformatted so that it is legible, clear and useable.

2)  The archives are broken and need to be fixed.

3)  Posts with Hebrew and Arabic - the Hebrew and Arabic texts need to be replaced and this time I need to code them better so they’ll survive future WordPress upgrades.

4)  Random coding garbage needs to be cleared out of some posts.  You’ll know it when you see it.  I’ve seen it in some places and I suspect it exists in numerous places.

I’m sure there are other things that need to be done as well.  Maybe if I work on this one little thing at a time, I’ll get it all figured out.