According to the Washington Post, Facebook signed up its 500 millionth user last week, a mere 6 years after the site was launched. There are now more people on Facebook than live in the United States, Canada and Mexico combined!

Facebook and other social networking sites, such as Twitter and LinkedIn, have changed the way many people communicate, including me. I don’t have hundreds of “friends” on Facebook, the way some folks do, but I communicate frequently with the ones I do have. I don’t update my “status” every time I change rooms in the house but I do update it several times a week with information I wish to share with my relatively small circle of Facebook friends. And I actually take the time to read what my friends are posting on Facebook, too. I extended a friend request (or responded to one) because I was genuinely interested in what that particular person had to say, so why wouldn’t I read their posts?

Facebook is frequently used for commercial purposes and they created the concept of Pages to accommodate those who want to promote their business, organization or non-profit. For these users, a large “fan” base is important but for a personal page, like mine, a more select group is a much better way to go.

So who are some of my friends? Well, my family, of course, and all my business contacts that are on Facebook. But I also have a number of author friends, including a talented young woman from Ireland and Robert J. Sawyer, the author of the book that spawned the “Flash Forward” TV series. Others include our local tourism department, several book stores and scuba shops around the globe and the TV shows Big Bang Theory and Chuck.

Facebook certainly isn’t perfect, but it provides a robust venue where I can share pictures and thoughts with real and virtual friends all over the world. There have been plenty  of scary stories about Facebook in the press lately, but I believe if you manage your personal information carefully and select your friends even more carefully the risks are minimal.

See ya out there in cyberspace!