no, I will not "like" your Facebook page...probably

I'm friends with a lot of people on Facebook. That statement is true in both of the senses you could take it: that a lot of people I consider to be friends happen to have Facebook accounts, and also that I have a lot connections to people via Facebook's site which, in their own parlance, makes those people my "friends" (in much the same way that a Twitter entry is called a "tweet" or a menu item at McDonald's is called a "hamburger").

But as much as I enjoy the Facebooking, Zuckerberg's code monkeys have done a rather insidious thing: they've allowed people to have a professional Facebook page that's separate from their personal page. Now, all of these Facebook "friends" expect me to like their professional pages too.

Here's a quick flowchart that predicts (with a small margin of error) whether or not I want to like your professional Facebook page:

If your professional Facebook page is for a dog grooming service and I don't even have a dog, on what basis can I like or dislike it? My "like" actually means something to me. It carries weight. I can't water it down because you want your thing to seem popular. What I "like" on Facebook says a lot about who I am as a person. How can I, in good conscience, possibly endorse a thing I haven't used myself?

Now, be a dear and like this blog post on Facebook.