domingo, 15 de febrero de 2009

Who's afraid of the number 5000? (More facts about facebook)

This is the continuation of my entry about facebook earlier this year.

Last week, seeing that the number of friends in "Ananda Sukarlan's friends" group at facebook is reaching about 4.500, I had the idea of giving a gift to the 5000th friend. The gift would simply be a free ticket to my solo piano concert at Goethe Haus, Jakarta on the 4th of March*. Both Chendra and me have discovered that the number of friends grows approximately 40 to 80 every day in that group, so I guess that in about a week from that date the group will reach 5000.

But now, instead of celebrating the 5000th, it turned out to be a disaster. A second disaster, to be precise. First of all, last year my personal fb could not accept anymore friends due to its maximum number, 5000. Now, the group (whose number is supposed to be unlimited) has said that fb CANNOT send messages to the members since the number has surpassed 5000. In fact, since a few weeks ago every time that Chendra or me sent a message to all members of the group, fb did it with a note "Your message is delayed since you are sending to a large group of people", and we realized that it took 2 to 3 days to reach the destinations.

So we made a quick decision of making another group, "Ananda Sukarlan's friends 2" (I can't believe that I am emulating Harry Potter, Indiana Jones or the dinosaurs at Jurassic Park) . The problem now is to get my friends at "1" to move to "2" . Even as owners and administrators of the group, we cannot decide who enters or who leaves the group. We can just invite people, or report people if they violate anything in the group, but it's all up to the fb big brothers to do it. So, may I ask you, friends, if you are a member of "1" to "move" to "2" ? Please make sure you MOVE, (which means that you get out of group "1") and not just be another member of 2, because then you are giving more problems !

Oh, some friends have suggested that we create a Fan Page for me. Now, that's against my will, since I don't feel I have fans. I am not a celebrity, I am simply a composer. There is nothing celebrational or glamorous in putting those beansprouts on music paper on a table.


* My concert at Goethe Haus will be on Wednesday, 4th of March at 7.30 pm. Its program triply celebrates the 200th year of Joseph Haydn's death, 200th year of Felix Mendelssohn's birth and 60th year of Jaya Suprana (one of Indonesia's prominent composer)'s birth. I will also give the first performance of my Rapsodia Nusantara no.3 .. if you wonder about no.2 , I will write about it in this blog later this (or next) week (or month) ..