Facebook is mad at me, or so it seems. I think they want me to take a timeout…

It seems that Facebook likes to put limitations on certain things. Earlier this week, I was accepting a few friend requests and requested a few friends when I received the “strike 1″ red alert message. It basically said “Stop! You are making friends too quickly!.” And then it rambled on about how I would get disabled for a few days if I kept going.

I suppose this started happening since I created this blog and have been meeting a lot of new people from around the world. I get a few friend requests everyday but nothing I would consider “too much.”

So this got me to thinking, why would a social network as big as Facebook have to apply such limitations. I mean, isn’t the point of a networking site to meet new people, regardless if you have actually met them in person? I have a lot of friends that I have never met in person but still talk to them often, does this mean they are not an actual friend? I think not.

I decided to do some research and see what I could bring up about these Facebook limitations that no one seems to actually know about until they get a warning.

I managed to find a ton of people complaining about the same types of messages. I even found a great article, “13 Reasons Your Facebook Account Will Be Disabled,” which talks about the common reasons peoples accounts get disabled.

Now some of these reasons I can agree with. For example, I can see why not using your real name might cause some suspician and get you banned from Facebook. But adding to many friends and poking too many people? Come on!

It turns out, they even have a friend limit of 5,000 people on Facebook. Once you hit the magic number of 5,000, people will recieve the “So and So already has too many friends” message when trying to add you. Yeah, I suppose 5,000 friends is plenty for most users of Facebook. But then again, my goal of this blog is to make myself famous, so I just might make 5,000 friends along the way…Ha Ha

The creators over at Myspace have set no limitations on things like friends, messages being sent, or how many people you can send things to. I think this is the way a social networking site should be. Why limit anyone from getting what they want out of a networking site?

So I am interested to see if this happens to a lot of other people. If it has already happened to you, please drop me a comment and let me know how it went.

Also, feel free to add me on Facebook, might as well go for “Strike 2″. I can’t wait to see what this red alert message will say. Maybe something along the lines of, “We weren’t kidding, there is a Facebook van outside your apartment and we are keeping our eyes on you!”

Click Here To Add Me

As I was surfing the internet this morning, I stumbled upon an article written by Tony Dokoupil over at Newsweek.com. The title of the article was “Revenge of the Experts” and it was looking at the trends that seem to be happening on the internet lately.

Tony starts by saying:”By any name, the current incarnation of the Internet is known for giving power to the people. Sites like YouTube and Wikipedia collect the creations of unpaid amateurs while kicking pros to the curb—or at least deflating their stature to that of the ordinary Netizen.”But what it also points out is that many sites are now starting to lean more towards hired professionals rather than user-generated content. Accuracy always has been an important but often overlooked element of the web. Many sites allow users to post information with little or no accuracy checks. This can lead to misleading information being found all over the internet.

So the question is, will the internet be looking for a change soon? According to Tony,”The timing could be right for a new era in Silicon Valley, a Web 3.0. It comes, after all, during dark days for the ideal of a democratic Web. User-generated sites like Wikipedia, for all the stuff they get right, still find themselves in frequent dust-ups over inaccuracies, while community-posting boards like Craigslist have never been able to keep out scammers and frauds.” I agree with what he has to say because it is vital to have correct information available to everyone.

At the same time however, I feel the users of the internet deserve our share of free speech as well.Web 2.0 has brought us Facebook, Myspace, Digg, wiki’s, and tons of other social networking sites. They have all made it so much easier to share content with others from around the world. Web 2.0 has changed the way nearly everything gets done on the web. Blogging alone has created a gigantic network of people who enjoy writing about all sorts of topics. It allows us to share our thoughts, opinions, and best of all, knowledge.

I would really hate to see Web 2.0 get tossed to the side in favor of a new platform where hired professionals create all of the content on the internet. The reason the internet is so interesting, is because so many more people get a say. If I wanted to read nothing but articles written by professionals, I would buy a newspaper or magazine. I enjoy the options of choosing from an array of different sources because they all have a unique point of view.

So the question is, who is considered a professional? Bloggers writing in there niche could easily be considered professionals in the industry. So maybe if Web 3.0 does happen in the near future, us bloggers will find ourselves getting offers to write content for larger websites.

Who knows, only time can tell where the internet will be heading. All I can say for now is, I am still your fan Web 2.0.

Please feel free to share your thoughts on this and what you hope to see happen to the internet in the near future.