The quest for friends — thefacebook.com

The letter was outdated by the telephone, the telephone by email, email by Instant Messenger, and now the newest fad, thefacebook.com, is supplanting them all.

As of Thursday, 1,702 University students comprise only a fraction of the 56,551 students from 16 colleges that have joined the online social networking database.

"Joining thefacebook.com has practically changed my life. Instead of going to class, rehearsals or the Street, I sit at my computer and read the profiles of my friends, my friends' friends and their friends. I'm addicted," James Park '07, an active user of the site, said.

But others are resisting thefacebook.com craze and believe the system is a waste of time designed for those who simply want to quantify their friends.

"Thefacebook.com is just an exercise in online vanity. I'm wary of using online communities to define who we are and our relationships to one another," Mark Curtis '07 said.

The brainchild of Harvard University sophomore Mark Zuckerberg, the interactive site allows college students to post pictures, personal profiles and course lists — and sometimes even score a date for the weekend.

Students can create social groups and invite other users to be their friends.

Thefacebook.com users have said that the site improves relationships between individuals that only know each other casually or have been out of contact for years.

"It's almost controlled stalking, but also quite useful. I've been found by people from my past who I have not spoken to since lower school," Helen Rogers '07, one of almost 500 freshman registered on the site, said.

Fun features

Many features unique to the site appeal specifically to college students. For example, if a user posts an Instant Messenger screenname, the person's most recent away message appears next to his or her profile.

The site even allows students to send messages and "poke" one another. But even thefacebook.com's managers cannot explain the purpose of poking.

"We have about as much of an idea [of what poking is] as you do," the site's question-and-answer section says. "We thought it would be fun to make a feature that has no specific purpose and to see what happens from there. So mess around with it, because you're not getting an explanation from us."

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But with personal information available on individuals' profiles, thefacebook.com might seem to be a security risk.

Zuckerberg has ensured that the site's features and search capabilities can be restricted by several privacy options. In general, students can indicate which parts of their profile will be displayed to other users and friends.

"You can limit who can see your profile, if you only want current students to see your information, people in your year, in your college, in your classes. People have very good control over who can see their information," Zuckerberg said.

On Monday, online advertisements were introduced on the site, raising questions about the project's ultimate goal.

According to Chris Hughes, a sophomore at Harvard and the site's press manager, the ads are meant to cover the site's expenses and not to commercialize the site's popularity.

"We put ads to cover the technological expenses, such as server investment, and because we are hoping to increase the size of our staff," Hughes said.

All eight Ivy League schools are on the site as well as eight other colleges. Zuckerberg said the site will continue to expand.

"We will have probably not more than 20 or 25 schools including those already on the network, and we are planning to add a few additional features as well," Hughes said.