Faceless (Saturated Market)

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Faceless

Social Media I'm committing what some people may call blasphemy: I'm leaving Facebook.

No, it's not a grand protest against the privacy intrusion, or being driven away by applications. It's just outlived all usefulness for me.

I know this baffles some people, and has even driven a few of my colleagues to speak out and ask me not to leave. So I figure this is as good a way as any to explain myself.

Nothing new

Facebook offers me very little in terms of services I don't already have. Rather than a more or less public messaging system that is limited by who's joined and who actually checks their site, I already have a telephone, email and an instant messenger; each of which is, in my opinion, far more convenient and robust than the wall or message inbox will allow.

Really, nothing new

Also, I have found that nothing happens on Facebook. I would sign on every day to decline invitations to events I don't care about in cities I don't live in, to read about the current status of people I haven't spoken to in years, and to delete calls to join groups I'll never check and applications I'll never add. Nothing of interest happens on Facebook, and frankly, I have no time for websites that don't enrich my life somehow.

A better photo album

If you want somewhere to put your photos, might I recommend Flickr? No limits on the size of your photo albums, the ability to avoid being tagged in embarrassing pictures, and far fewer drunk people. Also, you can store your photos at their original size, and view them at any range of standard sizes. This is a vast improvement over Facebook's "one size fits all" mantra. Yes, to get the most out of Flickr you have to subscribe, but I offer these three tips that really made it an obvious choice for me:
1) Even without paying, you still get fairly decent service for smaller scale use
2) I'm willing to pay for something if I think it's worth it, and this is
3) The community is terrific, and sometimes even give away subscriptions. My current subscription was a gift from a total stranger who helped me out on the forum when I was having trouble with my credit card.
I would like to mention this point before I move on: Flickr has been bought by Yahoo!, and so their customer service (through Yahoo!, of course) is remarkably uninspired, I was not overly impressed. But the actual site is so fantastic, I was willing to put that aside.

Not Applicable

I know, I know, I keep saying that it's not the applications. But I really hate applications, and I can't write about Facebook without giving them a shout-out. Facebook's applications are like the comment boards on most websites: they irritate me simply by their presence, and I would give anything to be able to choose not to see them. Where are the widgets and gadgets when you need them?!

Long time no see

In the end, Facebook became something I would go on out of habit to clear any debris away and see whose profile picture had changed. It gradually dropped off until I would only go when I received an email that somebody had written on my wall or sent me a message. So away I went.

Guess who's watching?

One final note: I know everyone's heard this song and dance before about Facebook and your personal info, and all the conspiracy theories that go along with it; but seriously...Microsoft paid $240MM for a 1.6% stake in the company. Microsoft isn't in the business of just giving away money. There must be something there worth paying all the cash for such a pittance...and it's called marketing databases.

Until next time,