When Facebook was founded in 2004, it was meant to be a way for college students to connect with the friends that they had left who had gone to other colleges, however it has become an insane social tool that everyone (including my parents) have subscribed to.

Facebook may be looking into becoming an operating system for communications as far as personal computers are concerned. This means that Facebook wants to become as much as a part of your life as Microsoft, Google, Yahoo, or other companies that have become household names.

Last week Facebook let its users see a version of its search software that allows members to search news links as well as other topics that users have updated in real time. This feature is not just limited to friends, but to the network of over 250 million users. I can’t forget to mention that the social networking site has acquired FriendFeed. FriendFeed is similar to the rival social site Twitter. It allows users to bring together all their favorite content from other websites or blogs as well as services to one place so all their other friends can see it.

Once upon a time, Facebook was started as a group of Harvard students sitting in a room together who had a great idea. It was meant for people who were in college and had college email addresses to sign up. Now the site is open to anyone over the age of 13. This, of course, has brought in some heat from previous users who didn’t want to be friends with their younger siblings, but it has since grown to them not wanting to be friends with their parents, or worse yet…grandparents.

Facebook has also seen its fair share of criticism with the implementation of the news feed, which was seen by many as a “stalker feed” type of thing where anyone who you were friends with (or sometimes not) could see what you were doing on Facebook. However, over time, this made Facebook an application that many people sought out the site for, and it eventually made the site much more relevant.

Facebook has had plenty of opposition from other social networking sites. MySpace was supposed to be the greatest social networking site on the internet, but is now seen (by many) as a dirty place that many people don’t go anymore. Twitter serves a single purpose, and not much more than that.

I think that Facebook is already a social networking superpower and over time it will be seen if the company can keep it up or let it slip away from them.

I am not a huge fan of Offerpal, it likely has something to do with the fact that I, at one point in time, enjoyed playing Farmville. In order to earn “farm cash” you had to either fill out surveys or give the game money. The last time I tried to fill out the surveys (no, I never gave them my cell phone number or anything except for an email address I use for spam anyway) I waited and waited and never got the “farm cash” I was promised. Since that day, I haven’t played Farmville.

This practice has made a lot of people on the site angry, including editor at TechCrunch Michael Arrington, who has gone after the CEO of Offerpal to get some explanation about the company’s ethics.

Facebook posted in its blog about its ad policies and how it polices ads on the site.

The blog said, “Our policies are clear. If you’re an ad network and don’t comply with them, you are doing a disservice to your customers, and you should expect your business opportunities on Facebook to cease. The underlying issues here are bigger than ads. They’re about building an experience that users will want to come back to …no spam, no surprises.”

I completely agree with Facebook here, but I do believe that it should do something to keep spammy ad networks off the site (otherwise it will begin to look less like Facebook and start getting a reputation more along the lines of Myspace). Myspace is full of spammy ads that Facebook, so far, has steered clear of for the most part.

The ad networks used to get the “premiums” in the games like Farmville, Mafia Wars, etc. are all pretty spammy and unless someone really knows what they’re doing when they “sign up” for an “offer” or fill out some kind of quiz, then they could end up being charged for the premium services on their cell phones or other ways.

Most employers (if not all) enjoy watching their employees be productive and make money for the company. Anytime there is a lot of anti-productive behavior coming from an employee, that employee will likely find him or herself as a pretty good candidate for unemployment.

This is why it is important to note exactly what NOT to do if you want to keep your job. Right now, just flying under the radar is not enough to keep a job that is in demand.

One thing, and probably the most important is never, EVER do anything to reduce your productivity.

Some people think that it is really cool to update their Twitter page every time they change positions in their office chair. First of all, your boss isn’t stupid and is likely catching on to how much time is being spent on the social networking site rather than filling out TPS reports. If you are one of the people who update your Twitter a lot then you really need to ask yourself this question: Is the next 140 characters worth my job?

Worse yet, people are Tweeting about things like getting job offers! Say that they aren’t even using Twitter at work; how hard is it for their current boss to see that? Not only that, but people tweet about some really random and embarassing things sometimes as well. How does it look to always be talking about your party habits or your drunken hookup over the internet?

I will say, sometimes I get really caught up in other people’s drama on social networking sites if I know who they are. I even feel embarrassed for them from time to time but then I have to realize that they are the ones who decided to post all of their personal business for everyone to see.

So, a couple of things to remember if you are going to use Twitter (even at work) is to never talk about office drama. Sally in HR is not going to be happy about your decision to talk about how she picks her teeth or something such as that.

Only update your Twitter or Facebook or whatever on YOUR time. If you’re off the clock for lunch or something, then go nuts! That’s your time. You just really need to make sure that you’re not talking about anything that may put your job in jeopardy.

Another thing, there are websites devoted to embarrassing things that people say from time to time. Even in a text message, you can still end up with your words for everyone to see.