Journalists on Social Networking Software

There were two articles published last week in popular media on social networking software:

The Wall Street Journal: More, but not Merrier: Web sites that help you collect and ‘manage’ friends. (HT to Dave Moore)

The Washington Post: With Friends Like These

Neither is particularly sympathetic. I am not disputing that people with hundreds of “friends” online can hardly be participating in deep relationships with all. Also, I am only a very casual user of FaceBook, so I can’t be considered an authority, but what both articles seem to ignore is that people who have friends in real life use social networking sites to keep in touch online.