Of course Facebook can do a lot of different things for different people; and different people eye it with enthusiasm, hostility, and anything in between. Some say it can consume hours each day, and thus reduce your productivity; others say it will eventually replace email in the workplace (as it is already in process of doing in the world of Gen Y and those who want to communicate with them). We’ll see in the interesting next few years…

For my part, I find Facebook a pleasant way to keep in touch – lightly – with my friends. My personal strategy is to use LinkedIn for work-only contacts, and Facebook for people I know in person: friends and family. I don’t spend hours on it daily – more like five minutes – but it does alert me to news from my wider circle of friends: who’s had a baby, who is relocating to another land, who is vacationing where and what they saw there that they want to share… and all this in a fun, interactive way, with the full benefits of a true Social Network.

But in addition to the fun part, the migration to Facebook may have a serious role to play in getting in control of information overload. As more of this personal knowledge transfer moves to Facebook, it will stay out of the overused, abused, battered and stressful email Inbox. Most of the jokes, links and recommendations that my many friends used to send me via email in past years seem to have gone to the much less demanding Facebook update stream, where they can be consumed – or not – much less formally.

What is your experience with this?