Outside the Beltway

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OTB on Facebook

James Joyner
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Matthew Yglesias has not only been proudly eponymous since 2002, he has had his own Facebook fan club (“Matthew Yglesias is kinda awesome“) since last summer. This is all the rage among lefty bloggers, with Talking Points Memo (TPM Fans) and MyDD (MyDD People) following suit. Indeed, Matt Stoller alleges that “everybody’s doing it.”

Not to be left out, I’ve inaugurated a Friends of OTB group. I’m not sure what I hope to accomplish with it but figure it might be interesting for readers and contributors to the OTB blogs to have another place to post messages and to have the ability to associate a face with the names.

Being an authoritarian righty, membership requires my approval. I’m happy to let anyone’s name that I recognize in, though, so long as they’re not among the half dozen or so non-spammers banned from the comments section.

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7 responses to “OTB on Facebook”

  1. Stanford Matthews Avatar
    Stanford Matthews

    I must be out of touch. I find Facebook, MySpace and other similar phenomenon as appealing as taking pix with a cellphone. Although I concede there is some value in it, I’m not entirely sure it is worthwhile. A little old-fashioned, I guess.

  2. Sean Hackbarth Avatar
    Sean Hackbarth

    I don’t quite get it either. However, many people like it and use it so it’s a case of going along with readers and users instead of ignoring where they congregate.

    For what it’s worth I’ve started a Friends of TAM. I too don’t know what will be made of it.

  3. Russell Newquist Avatar
    Russell Newquist

    I don’t really get it, either, but I appreciate being on the initial list of invitees to the list anyway. 😉

  4. Triumph Avatar
    Triumph

    I’m happy to let anyone’s name that I recognize in, though, so long as they’re not among the half dozen or so non-spammers banned from the comments section.

    What about annoying satirists?

  5. James Joyner Avatar
    James Joyner

    What about annoying satirists?

    Admissible, although perhaps with a wary eye.

  6. Steven Taylor Avatar
    Steven Taylor

    I must confess to not getting MySpace. Facebook I actually understand as (at least in the original conception) it was limited to communities made up of students, faculty and alumni of a given school. It was possible to find old friends and such as well.

    I have been on Facebook for a while as I have found it useful sometimes for communicating with students and keeping track of campus events. How it will work in this context (i.e., connecting blog readers) remains to be seen.

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