Welcome to the forums!!!

I'd have to say this is as good as anyplace too, and go a step further and say it's the best place I've found.

I use FB a lot, but almost exclusively to keep in touch with family and close friends. For all things backpacking I come here.

I just started a project to create a "Social Networking" site. Feature wise, it's about the same as this forum, which programmatically isn't much different than FB.

You can post "Instant Messages" here with the "Shout Box" that are available in real time to all users, and you can send "Private Messages" to one, or many users here to create a private conversation, and link photos and videos, etc.