Facebook: Gone.

A couple of weeks ago, I got rid of my Google+ account (still have the email and if they keep NAGGING me about G+ I will probably drop those, too) ... anyway, followed up today with dumping facebook, 2 weeks to change my mind but I dont think thats going to happen, somehow, it was just annoying the crap outta me.

A degree of freedom has been attained.
 
In my day job I deal with the uses of social media. Like it or not, the second you log on, you are not just a product, you are a consumer and therefore a commodity. There is (much) more to come as "social" channels to market are developed further and "omni-channel" interaction becomes the norm... Like it or loathe it, you had best learn how to make it work for you.
 
Ah another facebook thread.
It's good to be reminded that there is absolutely nothing I like about facebook.
I'm out , I'm still out, and I always will be out.

But if it works for you then go with it.
 
I've pondered many times dumping Facebook. The only reason I haven't is because of dear friends from the past living in remote locations. It's an easy (lazy?) way to keep in touch.
 
facebook allows me to be social with friends without having to put up with them in person :) and im all for that! :D
im a big hermit, but people seem to THINK im mr super social... so this way, they can get their Eliot fix ;D hehehehehehhe
 
I closed my FB account around last November, like Sue it was beginning to annoy the hell out of me. Unsolicited ads that were totally irrelevent to anything I'm interested in, people posting stuff like "going for a wee now" or "Off to the shops to buy some milk" .......Why would I be interested in knowing that? The greater percentage of folks I had as "friends" I'd never even met and most were bloody annoying or just plain dull - certainly in the virtual world they were anyway, and I'm glad i never got to meet any of them in real life.

So, why have i just opened a new account? Blame my daughter - she asked me to. She lives in Vancouver, Canada and I'm in Lancashire England and she misses our little FB chats - I must admit I missed them too. I used to leave FB open and would often get the little "Lizzi" prompt telling me she was there and we'd "chat" for ages. FB also allows me to keep up with her day to day life and what she's been doing etc so it does have it''s uses. I've also got two very good firends who have just gone to work over in Italy so it allows me to keep in touch with them as well. This account unlike the last one only has, and will have, people that I actually know personally or see on a regular basis, as friends - so far there are 7 of them! Nobody else can find me because the account has been set up in my dog's name. :)
 
In my day job I deal with the uses of social media. Like it or not, the second you log on, you are not just a product, you are a consumer and therefore a commodity. There is (much) more to come as "social" channels to market are developed further and "omni-channel" interaction becomes the norm... Like it or loathe it, you had best learn how to make it work for you.

I agree with Bill. I often get asked for advice about web sites and for at least the last 18 months my standard answer is, forget about a web site - start a Facebook group - you are far more likely to connect with potential customers/consumers than via a web site.

That said, I still have mine but I have not updated my website for about 3 years and in fact I can't see much point in having one. Flickr has been a lot more useful to me than my website.

LouisB
 
I never activated Google+, even when I had an Android tablet. And I disabled lots of built in apps that might, indeed, be useful if you use them, but were just bloat to me. I kept my gmail, where I have pointed sites that produce spam, but I sign in, delete the garbage, and sign out immediately, then go to DuckDuckGo, a search engine that doesn't track my every move. It's not that I'm doing anything weird, illegal, interesting to the NSA, or compromising at all online; I just don't don't like being tracked and avoid it as much as possible, disabling 3rd party cookies, setting my browser (Opera) to require me to click to activate plugins, and such things. And I won't tell Hulu what "ad experience" I'd prefer: surprise me an let me keep my likes and dislikes to myself. Like Sue, I don't like being treated as a commodity. I have to pay for my SmugMug account, but it seems worth it to me.

Paranoid? Not really. I just find the attitude of Google, Facebook, along with a host of other companies, that personal privacy is not important, irksome and and ultimately dangerous. I think Eric Schmidt is -- yes, sorry Google - Evil.

Facebook? I joined a number of years ago at the urging of my niece's son, who wanted to share his writing ( which was rather good). As soon as I realized that it had uploaded my entire Outlook Express (of happy memory) address book without specific permission, I closed it. Why any company would assume you'd want them to do that is quite beyond me. Since then, I've distrusted all social networking sites.
 
I closed my FB account around last November, like Sue it was beginning to annoy the hell out of me. Unsolicited ads that were totally irrelevent to anything I'm interested in, people posting stuff like "going for a wee now" or "Off to the shops to buy some milk" .......Why would I be interested in knowing that? The greater percentage of folks I had as "friends" I'd never even met and most were bloody annoying or just plain dull - certainly in the virtual world they were anyway, and I'm glad i never got to meet any of them in real life.

So, why have i just opened a new account? Blame my daughter - she asked me to. She lives in Vancouver, Canada and I'm in Lancashire England and she misses our little FB chats - I must admit I missed them too. I used to leave FB open and would often get the little "Lizzi" prompt telling me she was there and we'd "chat" for ages. FB also allows me to keep up with her day to day life and what she's been doing etc so it does have it''s uses. I've also got two very good firends who have just gone to work over in Italy so it allows me to keep in touch with them as well. This account unlike the last one only has, and will have, people that I actually know personally or see on a regular basis, as friends - so far there are 7 of them! Nobody else can find me because the account has been set up in my dog's name. :)

Not to defend facebook, but you can unfriend or block people you don't want to see. In the beginning I friended everyone too, but later cleaned out a lot of the chaff, and it's a much better experience.
 
I closed my FB account around last November, like Sue it was beginning to annoy the hell out of me. Unsolicited ads that were totally irrelevent to anything I'm interested in, people posting stuff like "going for a wee now" or "Off to the shops to buy some milk" .......Why would I be interested in knowing that? The greater percentage of folks I had as "friends" I'd never even met and most were bloody annoying or just plain dull - certainly in the virtual world they were anyway, and I'm glad i never got to meet any of them in real life.
That's the classic definition of letting Facebook use you instead of you using Facebook. I never "friend" anyone I don't know and I don't friend any number of people I do know but don't know well enough to want to know more about their daily lives. And even among those closer friends and family, who I find Facebook really excellent for staying in touch with, I apply filters as needed. I have a really close relative who posts political stuff ALL THE TIME. It's not that I find his politics objectionable - I almost always agree with him - but I don't want to be barraged by a zillion political articles when I open up Facebook. So I have him filterd to only see the most important posts. And I've told him that. Many people I want to maintain some access to I keep as friends but block their content so I can go see what they're up to if I choose to, but I don't see it unless I make a conscious decision to. I block all games and ads and everything like that - it's really not difficult to do.

But, using FB in this limited fashion I've reunited with some old friends I'm happy to be in touch with, however vaguely. And I keep up with a lot of the important things with my kids and brother and sister and neices and stuff that I'm glad to know about. I doubt I go onto Facebook more than once per week and often much less. I use it to stay in touch with people, not to follow every detail of their lives. And I find it pretty useful. But if I used like some people do, I'd have hated it within days. I sort of did hate it within days, but I caught the possibilities and learned to limit my exposure there, and it's worked out really wonderfully since...

-Ray
 
LOL. I only have 34 friends on FB and they are people I WANT to socialize with, not a hundred people I don't really know or want to keep in touch with just to say I have xxx# of friends. I'm not even on FB as my name, I put my cat's name up so I can't even be found unless it is by someone I want to find me LOL!

I remember trying to close my original account, it was amazing how many hoops I had to jump through just to close the damn thing!
 
I was using fbpurity (fbpurity.com for those interested) and it kept the nonsense to a dull roar. But, in the end, it was just too much. Its not even about being exposed to the wider net. a search on my name probably still gets links to old posts from the early 90s when I was into linguistics and on a mail list for that. I'm out there. I just don't want facebook. The people I really care about are in regular contact with me anyway, facebook makes no difference to that. email works for me, and imessage/skype/ICQ/MSN etc.

I like the idea of creating a fairly anonymous profile and only having a few people there. But I probably wont do that.
 
Facebook like everything will run its course and eventually disappear.
This happens with everything in time.

What was its predecessor called? /sarcasm

About all I use FB for is a directory service if I am looking for someone long lost.
Apart from that I don't bother to login any more and ignore the posts, also turning off all notification emails except maybe new friend req.
I notice for many it seems to be used as a popularity contest.
 
I've got family and friends all over the world and find Facebook very useful in keeping connected to them and their lives. Yes there's lots of noise from time to time, but effective filtering and scanning makes it still usable to me.

And like a couple of others, I use FB for business. I have a number of accounts whose Facebook page I help manage as well as run advertising. When I run ads, I try to target as precisely as possible so that only people that are inclined to be interested in my client's products/services see the ad. Putting an ad in front of a person who is not likely to be interested is a lose-lose: the person sees noise and the advertiser wastes money.

Some of the ads that I run get click-through rates of 20% and more (20 out of 100 people that see the ad click on it), with any ad receiving ~5% or less getting deleted. In comparison, ads on websites usually get just 1 or 2 people out of 1,000 (0.1%-0.2%) clicking through. So ultimately, well-targeted ads on Facebook are arguably better than ads on websites for both the advertiser and viewer. When done properly, less noise, more signal.

Yes, I can understand people being frustrated with any and all advertising, but Facebook is free after all, so someone has to pay the bills.
 
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