How I Became Friends With Bill Clinton - The Virtual Reality Of Facebook

It is perhaps just the epitome of the fantasy world we live in on the world wide web. We can be who we want and even now be friends with whom we want, so should be that amazed when our friends on Facebook aren't really who they say they are?

It is a wonder - if we even feel the need to sign up to Myspace for example, we can find within minutes we can 'be friends' with who ever we want. Within a bored half an hour on a wet Sunday afternoon, I have a dozen friends, four of which played a Diana's tribute concert at Wembley Stadium yesterday. Surely this is a question of identity. When we live in a world which can take away our own persona's right down to out finger prints, it is a wonder how we can get away with being someone famous or infamous just at the click of a mouse. This may all be a bit of a jolly good giggle on the net, yet there are some who take the art of networking far more serious than that. For me, my whole world is peppered with networks - a word I discovered at school means something totally different now that my life practically depends on it. I live to network and when one mixes in the circles where employers don't exist, to frequently network is the only way I can earn a crust. Yet whilst clicking through (we can't say thumb anymore - nothing is in print) the BBC news page today, I came across an article which mentioned a man who actually pays for someone to network for him. A messages was left on the article writer's Facebook which said,

"I met somebody the other day who told me that online networking was so important, and he didn't have the time, he was paying somebody to be him online. To blog, network, post etc . £1,000 a month too. Apparently it's a new occupation which he reckons already numbers hundreds of people, paid to be other people!"

I guess there is money to be made out of everything. For an entrepreneur, it is a money making scheme. You pay someone to blog, send messages, get chatting in chat rooms for you and then they report back to you and tell you who you have befriended and no doubt, who you have peed off in the process. Perhaps it doesn't sound so bizarre as it really is, after all, I don't doubt that we have sat back and thought of another way to while away the moments in between surfing and wondered how we could make some more money, and this seems to be it.. So far, we known that Chinese workers indulge in the sport of gathering "gold" from on online game website - not a bad thing. Yet are people on such networking sites as we know in our western world who they say they are? On Facebook, it would seem, users have to be under their own names, so what is the founder of lastminute.com, Brent Hoberman doing on here? Is it really him? Do you think that a multi million pound dealer in all which is worthy and last minute is going to want to share with millions of other strange ones what are his favourite films and what he likes to do in his spare time? I'll have you wonder now. So if it isn't him, is this then identity fraud? The author of this particular article on the BBC news page contacted the chap on Facebook just to make sure, and apparently, it was him. The very man who has revolutionized the way we shop also likes to participate in discussions about TV property programmes... Well I'll Be.... Strangely Mr Hoberman said of getting someone else to do the dishing for you,

"I think if I could get someone else to manage my e-mail then I could outsource social networking. But I can't, and think one has slightly lost the plot if that happens."

I wonder who many of us will be clicking the link to make him a friend now simply because we know he is for real. But what about other famous celebrities? It is certainly worth a send of a message just to find out if that person is really on Facebook. Sir Patrick Moore, the famous astrologer replied and said as strange as it was, it really was him on the site and enjoyed the social side of it as opposed to staring at the stars in the sky every night which tends to give you a stiff neck after a while. However, the English literature gent and general nice actor, Mr Stephen Fry had to issue a message on his page saying that he was rather concerned at the amount of people who wanted to be his friends. The message said that although he did not want to turn anyone down, 20 a hour was rather excessive. Yes, indeed, it is the real Stephen Fry - author, comic, show host, actor and general nice chap who you would want to have as a real friend. So the next time you stumble across Brad Pitt then why not send him a line, just to see if it really is him, and oh yes, by the way, Elvis is not really dead, he's just on Facebook...