Bye for Now

Image by Bill Cammack via Flickr

I’m going to go into hibernation for a bit regarding this blog, and start deleting some of my online traces where this is possible. The plan is to end up with one website dedicated to my PhD, where I will then also integrate my twitter eventually, as well as – maybe – a blog in the future. However this won’t be a daily one like I’ve attempted with this one.

The reality is that my life is pretty steady right now – I know where I’ll be living, working, and who I’ll be dating for the foreseeable future. I have no desire for change.

Hence, I will focus on the things in my offline life and enhance them, and make them better and better. There’s not much room right now for social media, or ‘web 2.0’ (apart from maybe twitter, but that’s micro and not intrusive upon my life!).

The other point is that I think the backlash against social media has begun (see for ex. Bobbie Johnson’s Why I’m finished with Social Media). Brought on partly by the credit crunch, but also the fact that companies will realise that they’re have to make money out of it somehow, then they’ll introduce some shite, and users will desert. I’m not a doom-monger, but I’ve always been kinda right in my vibe about the internet. I might just be starting a new trend here 🙂

Facebook to Market Its User Base

Image via CrunchBase

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.

(Facebook Marketing)

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).

Related articles by Zemanta

• Newsflash: Facebook Not “Cashing In On Friends” (techcrunch.com)
• Can Facebook make its ‘engagement ads’ work? (guardian.co.uk)

I’ve Deactivated My Facebook Account :D

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 😉 )

Deleting Facebook Profile

I think I’m going to delete my Facebook profile. In recent months, I haven’t been logging in much at all – and to be honest, I’ve never used it much in the first place.

I’m a bit of an antisocial person and that includes online and lately I’ve been getting too many people bothering me (hehehe… it’s not that many, but too many for me!!). For instance, come Xmas, you get virtual Xmas cards on Facebook (fuck off ppl!). Then I get invites to join various shitty support groups such as ‘I lost someone I love to cancer’ etc. and to be honest

EVERYONE CAN JUST FUCK OFF!*

The only ‘social network’ I’ll be staying on is wer-kennt-wen, as it’s non-demanding. Also I’ve linked my yahoo account to it which I never check, so I can pretty much ignore it most of the time 😉

For professional reasons, I shall stay with linkedin and with Xing. But that’s about it. And I quite like my twitter so I don’t mind keeping that up. But twitter (non-anonymous) and this blog (anonymous) is about as much as I’ll want to communicate online.

The deletion shall happen some time during my Xmas break. I shall disappear into thin ether 🙂

*no offence. It just isn’t me. Not your fault, pal.