Strictly professional: Further reflections on the grown-up Facebook

-I'm kinda liking it. What I like most about Facebook, what keeps me on it, is the rolodex aspect. I'm not saying that's all I use it for, but I on some level think that's all it's good for, and Linkedin pares it down to just that.

-Not sure about the suggested... contacts. (The impulse is to say "friends," yet the purpose is to avoid needing to do so.) I mean, I've exchanged nods with the famous mathematician who lives across the street, but never emails, and I'm quite certain our professional overlap is nil. And of course, as with Facebook, there are the usual let's-move-along-shall-we suggestions (former students, people one went on one date with 100 years ago). I see patterns, but can't figure out where the data come from. Or could but won't be bothered.

-Also massively confused about the etiquette. Because these are contacts and not friends, you don't have to/aren't supposed to add (back) people you know socially, but who aren't in the same field as you? Or is there some kind of character-reference angle, where it helps to show that X-hundred people can vouch for your reasonable-person-ness? I mean, I'm only adding people where there's some kind of professional overlap, and even then feeling altogether pushy, but you know.

-The photo aspect is odd - like a French CV. (So I went with a picture taken in a Brussels Pain Quotidien. Close enough.) As is the prompt to say what year you graduated from college. Is this courting age-based discrimination? (Along similar lines, a posting for a very interesting writing job - job, not internship - notes that medical benefits aren't part of the deal. Is this because up to 26, that's now often taken care of? Is it, in other words, a way of saying the elderly, i.e. late-20-somethings, need not apply? Or is this just, as PG once helpfully noted in the comments, verbal skills aren't all that marketable?)