People are not flocking to Facebook because they want better email — they flock because they want to see what their ex looks like now. Facebook is not popular because it is a communication tool — nor is it an underutilized communication tool — Facebook is popular because people like to spy on each other.
Category: Social Media
On Facebook, Distractions and Real Friendships
Several weeks ago, I deleted my Facebook account. Several weeks ago, my life seemed to get a lot better.
If there are nouns — obligations, people, things, etc. — that you’ve allowed into your life that are holding you back from what you know is important to you, that should raise a red flag. Why are you tolerating those distractions?
To me, Facebook was a huge source of distractions.1
The End of Delicious?
It looks like Yahoo’s cost-cutting efforts go beyond its recent layoffs. The company plans to “sunset” (i.e., shut down) a number of products including social bookmarking service Delicious, according to what looks like a leaked slide from a company-wide presentation.
The risk of losing data when a company closes a service is a very real part of cloud computing.
Update: Here’s how to move your Delicious links over to Google’s cloud. Which is probably a little more stable than Yahoo’s at this point.
On Moving From Tumblr to Wordpress
With the recent Tumblr downtime incident fresh in everyone’s minds a lot of folks have, understandably, been considering moving from Tumblr to WordPress. I’ve made that journey twice and I can tell you that it is possible to move your site from Tumblr to WordPress without any significant front-end changes.
This exhaustive, end-to-end guide is simply brilliant.
What’s Really Going on with Tumblr
Appleincnews Twitter Account Suspended
Remember when some people thought Apple had an account on Twitter?
Well, it’s been suspended.That happens when accounts are run by large international corporations, right?
On Innovating
Chris Nuttall over at the Financial Times:
Mr Wilson, author of the popular A VC blog and a managing partner at Union Square Ventures, said Google had not come up with anything truly transformative that was a home-grown product since Gmail, introduced in 2004. It had relied on acquisitions instead to develop new services.
Wow. Once I stopped and actually thought about it, Wilson is right. Innovation is key in this industry, and eventually, growth via acquisitions can’t keep up.
On Facebook and Relationships
I quit Facebook back in mid-May of 2010, it has not been a year yet, but it has been a significant amount of time. What I can tell you is that not a single relationship/friendship that I have has suffered because of it. There has yet to be a single instance where I regretted quitting Facebook.
I think that if a friendship suffers due to a lack of Facebook, it probably wasn’t a great relationship to begin with. Social media makes the art of relationships appear easy, while in actuality, it creates a false feeling of closeness that wouldn’t be there otherwise.
Facebook is Creepy
“This is not an e-mail killer. This is a messaging system that has e-mail as part of it.”
That’s how Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg described the company’s revamped messaging system, introduced at a special press event in San Francisco today. The more-than-just-e-mail system is meant to consolidate all of a user’s interactions with other people—whether it’s via SMS, Facebook messages, or e-mail—into one spot. Of course, Facebook wants it all to live on its own servers.
A Life on Facebook
Updated: Tweetie for Mac Abandonware?
Twitter’s Carolyn Penner to Macworld on the beloved Mac app:
We aren’t actively planning Tweetie for Mac 2, but we maintain the app for current users. For example, over the summer we updated the client to use OAuth and improved MagicMouse support. We also made the app available for free.
Tweetie is one of the best designed programs for the Mac, however it is already behind the times, lacking both native retweet support and lists. While there are some other great Mac Twitter apps out there, it’s sad to see this one begin what will surely be a long, painful death.
‘Social Media Guru’ Jobs Plentiful
For years now, studies and news articles have talked about the value of using social networks to make potential employment contacts. Today it turns out social networking is the job—or at least part of it. The proliferation of sites like Twitter and Facebook as marketing tools has led to a boom in social-media positions at just about any company with a Web presence. In response, colleges are adding related courses and even entire M.B.A. programs to prepare students who are interested in turning an otherwise amusing hobby into their profession.