It’s nice to know that social networking sites like Facebook are being used by companies (in this case a car company) to pimp the Ford Explorer 2011. God knows, I’d buy a car based on 48,000 people pushing a “like” button, as opposed to checking out gas mileage, roll over statistics and safety tests. No, I want to make sure that the 2011 Ford Explorer and I share some mutual friends. Hey, maybe the new Ford Explorer and I could play Farmville together! Aw yeah, this is going to be great. And could I cross-post some of those 2011 Ford Explorer pictures for you? Sweet!

I’ve noticed on Facebook recently that products and businesses are being “suggested” to me a greater pace than ever. Oh sure, I understand people asking me if I “like” Jesus, or do I want to be on the fan page of this band, or that performer. That’s all fine. But, I shouldn’t have to point out, the 2011 Ford Explorer is not Jesus. Ford wsn’t even a disciple.

But I resent everyone from people to marketers clogging up the social website trying to peddle their movies, concerts, political organizations, etc., etc. See, this is one of the unintended fallouts of the Supreme Court case where it was established that corporations count as “people” for reasons of political contributions. As much of molestation of the political process as that one is and will continue to become, now I have to be “friends” with products? And, if I were to buy a 2011 Ford Explorer, and then later sold it, would have have to”unfriend” it first, or would I need to show proof of sale?

I already have people the “friend me” because they’ve seen me perform. Fine, I take that as a compliment, even when I do not know them, or remember them. But I’ve begun to see an increasing wave of people who friend me just because they saw we have mutual contacts in the performing world. They may not know the mutual friend anymore than they know me, but I’m on their friend’s Friend List, so I must be famous… or useful.

What was a way to stay in contact with, or re-find old and lost, friends is becoming another place for a few people and/or companies to flood the airwave (or bandwidth) with messages that do not build community; that just further their own limited, personal gains. So, don;t friend me if all I am to you is another contact. And stop trying to sell me a 2011 Ford Explorer while you’re at it.

The Providence Journal (“Projo” for short, or “that horrid little paper that isn’t The Boston Globe”) had their website fail today. And not in the usual, “Man, this reporting sucks” kind of way, I mean the server crashed harder than Bear Stearns stock.

Technical problems forced the Projo website to be down for several hours this morning, right in the middle of the busiest time, when nobody really visits the site, other than the worker bees that maintain it. Bereft of their hive-mind, they wandered aimlessly around the office, looking out windows and walking into office equipment. People trying to reach the website were greeted with the words “Http/ 1.1 Service Unavailable” written in fiery letters of blood. Or maybe it was in the Helvetica font, I forget.

Finally, about an hour-and-a-half later, the website came back on line, allowing the flood of six people waiting to read it to rush to log-on, as soon as they were done playing “Farmville” or trolling for internet porn.

Spokespeople for the Projo’s owners, the A.H. Belo Corp. of Dallas Texas had no comment, or were unable to be reached for comment, or were on fire at the time and were too busy trying to drop and roll.

Fortunately the newspaper was able to twitter all through the period of crisis, as well as blog and do the RSS feed thing. So those six faithful readers of the Projo were covered. thank God too