I know, I said that I didn't get Facebook. But now, I do. It's been over a month since I've started really playing with it, and I'll tell you what I've learned, from a design perspective.
First, Facebook is really "sticky" -- I get this term from Malcolm Gladwell's book, The Tipping Point. He defines sticky as a marketing term for infectious. How long does a product or brand or a visual stay with you? That's one measure of stickiness. With Facebook, what it means is how often do you visit the site, and how much time to you spend there? For me, it's a couple times a day, and I spend a few minutes to a half hour. But why, you ask.
One element of Facebook is that it sends me friend requests and notifications in email, so I am taken out of the task I'm doing (interrupted) and motivated to go see what gift I've received, what's written on my wall, or who wants to be my friend. It's like the little rush I get, when I see the postal truck coming down the street toward my house :)
Anther element of it's stickiness is the notion of time. I like to view my friend's status updates, which gives me a good idea of who is or was doing what when. As a result, I feel more connected to them on a regular, real-time basis.
Another thing that I enjoy are the applications on Facebook. They are fun, silly, and mildly informative. I have famous quotes, a fortune cookie, a friend wheel, a map of the world that shows where I've been, favorite music, books, ... I could go on. I can view my friends applications and information and they can view mine. We can learn more about each other than we normally would in person. And when I find a friend who has an application that I like, I can click one button to add the application to my page. Very sticky.
Lastly, the meta-finding I have is that Facebook gives me a distributed community of friends -- this access is important, because I don't have physical access to them. I can't walk down the hall and knock on their doors. Several people I work with -- okay, most of the people I work with -- live in other geographies like California and India. What Facebook gives us is a virtual water cooler to gather around. A way to relate to one another that is not just about the task at hand in a meeting. But it also gives me that ability to feel closer to the people I don't take classes with anymore, and people who have left Sun.
I get Facebook. It's about feeling connected to people in a technological world that often leaves us feeling lonely or isolated.