Today I did a search for Scotland on Facebook. I.e. a Facebook search, not a Google search. Some of the page names are so funny I wanted to share them (if you live in bonny Scotland, you’ll understand…). I do wonder if the rest of the UK and the Republic of Ireland are similarly in tune with their nation.
Fuck off Facebook. I’m not interested in setting Facebook as my homepage. Go away.
Yes, they need to make money somehow, someday. It’s more crucial than ever in 2009, to justify the (very likely very highly inflated) value that’s been put on it:
Zuckerberg said 2009 will be Facebook’s “intense” year as it tries to justify some of the mammoth valuations that have been placed upon it by making some serious revenues through advertising.
What they are planning on doing (maybe)? Offering up their user base for market research purposes (polls, questionnaires and such). While not as bad as intrusive advertising (remember Facebook Beacon anyone?), it still raises concerns about privacy (somehow they will need to query your data in order to see whether you would ‘fit the bill’ of the market research brief). Good job I have disabled my FB profile.
But it is another development that confirms my intended retreat from the online world.
And one other quick point about inflated company evaluations: Remember Friends Reunited anyone? The company was sold to ITV for £175 million in 2005, and this was a ‘web 1.0’ social network. Just how much less Friends Reunited is worth these days is yet to be audited (ITV to slash value of Friends Reunited) – but undoubtedly it’s going to be a fair bit less (have you been on the site? It’s DIRE, and the competition for online social spaces is now so much higher than back in 2005).
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The BF and I went to a colleague’s leave-do on Friday night. As always at these type of things, there was one person that had a digital camera and took pictures throughout the evening.
By Monday, they had uploaded said pics onto the work server, sending round an email to people with a direct link, as well as uploading them to Facebook (they asked me if I had deleted my profile as they had tried tagging a couple of pics with my name).
There are three things wrong here.
1. distributing pics of myself willy-nilly without prior permission
2. attempting to name-tag the pics, without prior permission, thus violating my privacy
3. distributing pics of B. willy-nilly without his permission
Especially the latter is of concern. He is NOT one of the work colleagues and, he went to great lengths to delete any profiles etc. online that he used to have as his online privacy is very important to him (you won’t find any pics/profiles of him if you google his name).
I didn’t pull the colleague up on it this time. There were ‘only’ two photos of me / me and B., and as I’d already deactivated my FB profile she won’t have been able to tag me. Still.
It just means that I won’t allow anyone to take pics of me in the future.
I’ve deactivated my Facebook just now. I’m getting a friend to see whether I have indeed ‘disappeared’ from her friends’ list.
I’m happy to downshift this year. With the ‘frugality’ also comes a quest for more simple natural pleasures I suppose. I haven’t watched regular TV (other than very selected shows on iPlayer/4oD) for the last 6 months, and thus haven’t been indoctrinated with TV and especially commercials at all. It’s made my head clearer and happier, as if I can focus much more on what I want and need.
The only way I can describe it is that I’m digging inside myself and doing stuff with what is there, rather than opening myself up to all the shit that is around and having to digest that. I’ve become much more selective, or rather: I’ve always been a selective c*nt but had become more open to let crap into my head over the last few years. Crap alongside the good stuff naturally – the good stuff has never disappeared.
The only difference now is that the void that’s being left by reducing the crap will *also* be filled with good stuff.
I.e. not just, say, 65% good and 35% crap, but 100% good 😀
(if any of the above doesn’t make sense don’t worry – it does to me 😉 )
How to be Happy 