It’s a well known fact that I am an online Social Network addict. I make no attempt to hide it. You name it I’m probably registered with it. Unless it’s Myspace. That went years ago.
I’ve written about this on another one of my old blogs before, however, in light of today’s news I think it’s best to make a much more relevant entry.
I joined twitter in 2006. I loved it, I still do. It was different. Faceparty and Myspace had NOTHING on it. Twitter was a fresh concept and it fascinated me.
Six months after that I registered with Facebook. I can’t remember why. I think I was kind of floating around looking for something to fill that very annoying void I had following the abortion of my Myspace account. That, and I’d heard a lot of my old school friends were on there, and I was quite eager to catch up with them all and to show them how fabulous I now was.
The intrigue lasted for about a year. I started reconnecting with people I’d not seen or even thought about for 5/6 years. It was great. The early days of Facebook were amazing. I used to sit at my desk at work with a customer on hold because I was poking someone and sending someone else a message.
During this I was still tweeting, an App was even created that allowed you to send use your tweets to update your status on Facebook itself.
Fastforward a few years and Facebook has evolved much more since back then. Sharing capabilities are phenomenal. It’s become much more than just a platform to reconnect with people. It’s a hub for you to share every little aspect of your life. Check-ins, Likes, What I’m listening to, what I’m watching, what I’m wearing. It’s consuming. I make no allusions. I’m involved in it too.
Signing up to a new service; Netflix or Spotify for instance. “Would you like to link this with your Facebook to see what your friends are listening to/Watching?” I click Yes. So many websites and apps nowadays give you the option to Log-in with Facebook/Twitter as well. It’s like the world has forgotten how to be creative and come up with a username and password of their own, Nah nevermind I’ll just use my Facebook and let them have all my details.
Today I made the decision after five(ish) years to severely reduce the amount I use and visit Facebook. I’m disconnecting a lot of my services from it (save from a few, I still need people to play Draw Something with!).
I am reminded of and episode of South Park titled ‘You have 0 friends.’ Oh, god! I’ve become Stan Marsh! This is pretty much life imitating art. I know plenty of people who have abandoned their Facebook accounts; and I’ve just joined their ranks!
When it was first announced that they had acquired Instagram for $1 billion (!) I was a bit perplexed. But, at the same time I understood that it was purely business (and quite a big move). There’s been a huge uproar from twitter (mainly) with people expressing their concerns that Facebook will toss Instagram away like they did with Gowalla.
That being said nobody really batted an eyelid when Twitter acquired Posterous, did they?
Business is business; and, they are in the business of business. And business is good.
Buffalo buffalo Buffalo buffalo buffalo buffalo Buffalo buffalo.
I honestly do hope that whatever they do decide to do with Instagram is in the interest of its users. It will be interesting to see how this plays out.
