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Best Alternatives To the Big Name Social Media?
rueger writes "Over a couple of years I have actually found Facebook pretty useful and/or entertaining. It has certainly allowed me to stay connected with a lot of people with whom I otherwise would have lost track, and for all its weaknesses it was handy for sharing links and such. This week, though, the privacy escapades have pushed me (and a lot of other people) over the edge. If Twitter's 140 characters aren't enough, LinkedIn is too business-oriented, MySpace too ugly, and Buzz — does anyone even use Buzz? What social media options are out there for all of those non-uber-techy folks?"
I just idle on IRC instead.
Give me Classic Slashdot or give me death!
The only way to win...is to not play.
Seriously, that's the best way to stay out of the Social Media Black Hole. Don't log in. Don't make an account. EVER. Ignore the temptation. Ignore the appeal.
To me telling strangers or vague people everything all the time is giving up my privacy. If people are interested, they can ask me and perhaps I answer, but I just do not see the point to give out information all the time for no apparent reason.
Perhaps there are people who had a diary when they where young. It was to write to yourself, not so much to show others. And then suddenly you are older, moved a few times and re-read them. It is then that you notice how uninteresting it all is.
So if you want have people get in contact with you, set up a web page and let them google you like you google them. And if they only look on Facebook, then they are interested in adding a friend to get as many as possible, not about finding you.
Don't fight for your country, if your country does not fight for you.
Sure, Mark Zuckerberg's a douchebag, but most large corporations are run by douchebags and yet I still buy Cheerios at WalMart and drive a Chrysler.
Here's the thing - and don't tell anybody I told you this - if you don't put anything private on Facebook, then your privacy won't be compromised by it.
I use Facebook. I use it because most of my friends are on it. It's a nice way to stay in touch with people who I know, but most of whom I couldn't finish a single beer with and still have anything to talk about. I like these folks - they're part of my past and present - bu some people I only have very small things in common with. I also know when things are happening (a friend's play, or their kids league championship ball game), and where I have common interests with acquaintances whom I would either not interact with at all, or would take years to become closer.
But guess what - I don't put anything on Facebook which is (a) embarrassing (b) particularly personal (c) not already available with an internet search. I never Facebook while drunk (well, I don't get drunk - but you get the idea), and I don't attack people or things. I don't join "causes". I'm not a marketing wasteland, though. I've filled out my "favorite" things sections. BFD. If knowing that I'm in my 40s, like Bowling for Soup and Amadeus, and am married gets Facebook a couple of dollars in ad revenue, go for it. Kroger already knows when I'm on a fucking Diet, and CVS probably informs their spies when the rest of my household has seasonal allergies.
So, that brings me back - unless you really need something else, and are willing and able to migrate your entire friend group to it - quit your whining, be smart with your data, and surf with due caution. You know you can't trust Zuckerberg, and that's 98% of the way to keeping your information safe.
Oh - and whatever you go to will be just as bad eventually. Google can't always not be evil, and even open source projects can have a mole.
Is it just my observation, or are there way too many stupid people in the world?
Will it eventually be possible to have a social-networking standard so that anyone can run their own server, just as with email? In that case it wouldn't matter if one friend uses facebook, another myspace, a third linkedin; they would all adhere to the same standard and so which particular social-networking service you use would become irrelevant.
PS: I apologize for being lazy but I haven't thought about this at all, so there could easily be some glaring reason why it can't possibly work.
Doug Stanhope on Why Your Opinion Doesn't Matter
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RycwYRcm3Lc
But guess what - I don't put anything on Facebook which is (a) embarrassing (b) particularly personal (c) not already available with an internet search.
It's not necessarily what personal info you put on Facebook that's going to come back to bite you in the ass; it's your social network itself. Back in the 1950s, during the McCarthy witchhunt, you got into trouble not so much for what you did, but for who you associated with (or even were just seen talking to). At that point you had the choice of either denouncing that person or being blacklisted yourself. As an aspiring dictator, I drool profusely thinking about how easily I'll be able to cleanse the social landscape of it's undesirable elements. They're falling all over themselves trying to give me lists of all their friends, no housecalls or torture needed.
Of course, it can't happen here, falling on deaf ears, etc...
http://www.classy.dk/log/archive/001074.html