Facebook is part of my daily routine.
It's a great tool for keeping in touch with a far-flung extended family and a network of real friends and, for me, it's a work tool to communicate with readers.
I post links to my column as well as other media articles. Those postings often provoke interesting discussions among my "friends," many of whom I've never met face to face. Facebook helps me connect more directly with the community of people interested in talking about media in all its forms.
But for most people who've signed on, it's a place to chat and play games like Farmville. And when we're talking "most people," we're now talking about a half billion people.
The enormous size of Facebook has spawned lots of attention from the traditional media, and CNBC is the latest outlet to take a look at Facebook. Tonight at 8 (with repeats at 9 and 11 p.m.), Lester Holt hosts "The Facebook Obsession," a collection of stories that look at the creation of the social media Goliath and some of its various uses.
There's a heart-warming story of a young woman whose search for her birth mother led her to Facebook, and a cautionary tale of another woman who lost her job because of comments she posted on her Facebook page.
Among the highlights is a 2004 CNBC appearance by Facebook creator Mark Zuckerberg.
It's a painless way to get some perspective on the biggest piece of the growing social media scene, although other than a passing mention, Twitter is ignored.
As this stuff evolves, it's hard to look at something like Facebook as an isolated thing. It's just one communication tool in a growing toolbox.
As long as we're talking Facebook, "The Social Network," the big-screen story of its creation, which is the subject of a lot of Oscar buzz, is still in theaters, with a big re-release this weekend.
The DVD comes out Tuesday.
On TV: A new Pew Research Center study shows TV remains Americans' number-one choice for news, but the Internet is in second place and growing, ahead of newspapers and radio. In the youngest group among those surveyed, 18 to 29 year-olds, the Internet was the number-one news source, as you'd expect.
- As the mid-season shows continue to roll out, the new season of ABC's "Wipeout" starts at 7 tonight on Channel 12, and the new season of MTV's "Jersey Shore" starts at 9.
- Me-TV is airing a tribute to the late Anne Francis on Saturday, starting at 7 p.m. with a couple episodes of her 1960s show "Honey West." Included are episodes of "Cannon," "Rawhide," "Gunsmoke" and "The Untouchables" in a marathon that runs into early Sunday. Me-TV is Channel 49.1 over the air, and Channel 19 on Time Warner and Charter cable systems.
- Jim Carrey is hosting this weekend's "Saturday Night Live," and NBC says Gwyneth Paltrow has hosting duties on Jan. 15.
- Betty White tells TV critics in Los Angeles that even she thinks she's over-exposed. "You’ve had an overdose of me lately. I think I’m going to go away for awhile," she said. Of course, the new season of her "Hot in Cleveland" launches Jan. 19 on TV Land with a visit from Mary Tyler Moore.
- Speaking of "Hot in Cleveland," it's planning a crossover with ABC's "All My Children." Wendy Malick will guest on the soap next month as her sitcom character, while Susan Lucci will appear on the TV Land show.
- And, speaking of TV Land, it will move its annual TV Land Awards to New York in April to honor two 1980s NBC sitcoms, "The Cosby Show" and "Family Ties." Both casts will reunite for the show.
- TLC is giving "Cake Boss" star Buddy Valastro a daytime cooking show. "Kitchen Boss" will focus on Italian cooking. It premieres Jan. 24 at 4:30 p.m. The fourth season of "Cake Boss" starts the following Monday, Jan. 31, at 8 p.m.
- If the winners of the People's Choice Awards are important to you, here's the complete list.
Two more weeks to wait: NBC finally brings back "Parks and Recreation" Jan. 20 in the 8:30 p.m. Thursday slot on Channel 4. Rob Lowe becomes a regular member of the cast in the role he started last season.
In the meantime, here's a preview of the show's third season:
Tim Cuprisin is the media columnist for OnMilwaukee.com. He's been a journalist for 30 years, starting in 1979 as a police reporter at the old City News Bureau of Chicago, a legendary wire service that's the reputed source of the journalistic maxim "if your mother says she loves you, check it out." He spent a couple years in the mean streets of his native Chicago, and then moved on to the Green Bay Press-Gazette and USA Today, before coming to the Milwaukee Journal in 1986.
A general assignment reporter, Cuprisin traveled Eastern Europe on several projects, starting with a look at Poland after five years of martial law, and a tour of six countries in the region after the Berlin Wall opened and Communism fell. He spent six weeks traversing the lands of the former Yugoslavia in 1994, linking Milwaukee Serbs, Croats and Bosnians with their war-torn homeland.
In the fall of 1994, a lifetime of serious television viewing earned him a daily column in the Milwaukee Journal (and, later the Journal Sentinel) focusing on TV and radio. For 15 years, he has chronicled the changes rocking broadcasting, both nationally and in Milwaukee, an effort he continues at OnMilwaukee.com.
When he's not watching TV, Cuprisin enjoys tending to his vegetable garden in the backyard of his home in Whitefish Bay, cooking and traveling.
