facebook???

[sunflower68]

I don't get it. I signed up but I cannot look at any profiles? Is this all there is to it , can't I be nosey without inviting myself onto profiles?

[boobesque]

Nope! You can only see friends profiles, you should have been able to find your friends at the beginning of signing up or if you look on the right hand side column you will see 'find friends' at the bottom and you should be able to see who in your email address book is on facebook

[Sasha13]

That's one of the things I like about Facebook - only your friends (or, unless you've adjusted your privacy settings, people in your network too) can see your profile!

Are you in a network yet? If so you'll be able to look at a lot of profiles of people who are in the same network. Bear in mind that if you don't want people to do the same then you'll need to adjust your settings!

[Sasha13]

Ooh, and I forgot to mention if you send someone a friend request or poke them they can see your profile for a week, but you can't see theirs until they accept your request.

[fo3nix]

Other sites like facebook were created for anybody to join.

Facebook was created with college students (American colleges, i.e., what in the UK are more commonly called universities) in mind.

You signed up with your uni email address, and became part of that uni's network. You could then browse other people's profiles on your network, if they let you do that (you could by default).

Then, a year or so ago, facebook opened the site up to everyone, even if you weren't at university. Unfortunately, the model they've had since the beginning is very much set up for uni students.

This includes networks. You can get regional networks, for example the Manchester network, which you can join and then be able to see many people who are also in the Manchester network.

Unlike similar sites like Myspace, it's really made for keeping in contact with current friends, and not so much finding new friends online.

[sunflower68]

Thankyou chaps, that clears things up a lot. I did get myself put on a network but I haven't really had a chance to try it again. Will have a look.