Faceless Facebook Friends Will Meet at Podcamp

I awoke to the sound of a 5-horsepower motor whirring in the driveway across the street. It has snowed and Kate next door was using her snowthrower to clean the white. It’s early February and I can only say I’m glad that January is gone. As I lay back in bed and gazed my barely focused eyes on my iPhone, I read the trail of Facebook posts that had been posted while I slept.

Like many people I know my life has been significantly changed by this regular ritual. Gazing down and reading the posts that 350 other people have added over the course of a day has become an important part of life. But truth be told, it’s really not all of those 350 people, it’s more like 20 or 30 who are active posters who consume most of my Facebook reading time.

I have never met many of these people who I follow; that’s a unique aspect of this new world of pseudo-communication. But I feel like if I met them I would know them as old friends. It’s the same for the blogs I follow; I know so many things about people because they’ve posted blogs about their lives.

On Saturday I will get to meet many of the Facebook friends and Twitter followers who only appear in my life in pixels. It’s time for Podcamp, where the questions one saves up all year can be answered and Geekdom rules. It’s a time where having 3200 followers on Twitter is actually cool, and we share expertise on whatever we know something about. It’s a time when it’s really ok to talk while you’re typing…my kind of place!