The Muhlenberg Weekly

Issue date: 2/22/07 Section: Focus

ack logged into his Facebook account for the day as usual, using verbal commands spoken into his headset. As soon as his voice was verified, his music player automatically paused and began to search for new tunes of possible interest. He was surprised to be presented with yet another referendum on the prosecution of the Iraq war-that must be the third this month. He checked a few groups and chatted with Friends, including a few of his former professors, discussing this latest solicitation for the public's input, and cast his vote. Since the 2008 election year, when Facies first became a potent political force, those in power had become careful to solicit Facie input on any item that may be of interest. No one was about to risk another 2008.

Next he handled some banking through a 'Friend', was presented with the local weather for the day as well as the weather for Seattle. He was advised that his flight was on time and that traffic near the airport was nominal. He noted that Facebook had already advised his 'Friend' the landlord, and the post office, that he would be out of town for two days. He selected and sent a birthday card to his little sister Suzie's Facebook account-he could see by her schedule that she was already in class. Then he flipped on the cam, and recorded his birthday wishes on her Wall.

Then he poked Sally and was pleased to find her on. They had a great time last night-as could be seen by the vids her headset had posted overnight and recorded while they were at the party. She was looking a bit tired this morning, but sounded as chipper as ever. He spoke with Sally for a while, and they promised to be on for each other until he arrived at his meeting later in the morning.

Sally's birthday was next Friday, so Jack quickly made reservations for dinner through a 'Friend', then talked directly with the baker, a 'Friend', about the type of cake he wanted for her party. A quick filter of Sally's 'Friends' list against his 'Friends' list produced an invitation list, which he dragged into an invitation zam, and off it went.

He placed a Facecall to his office, recording an out of office message and then checked email - he was still surprised that some of the staff insisted on continuing to use email! While finishing up, he noted most of their invited friends had already accepted-great! Facebook alerted him that he should soon depart for the airport, as traffic was building.

He and Sally had known each other since freshman year back at the 'berg way back in '06. Back when Facebook appeared to be just a fad-even though 95% of their class had accounts. It was hard to believe that there were only 10 million users back then-only a tenth of what it was now. There was even talk of Facies drafting their own constitution-which would really not be much of a leap beyond their extensive set of laws.

Continued...

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