Last Facebook Holdout? or Adventures in Anti-social networking

[ranger]

Originally Posted by Fuzzy

I use facebook almost primarily for this.. showing off my amazing vacations and/or jobs....

I'll friend you just so I can live vicariously through your amazing exploits. No life of my own....

[hufnagel]

i've never been on book of faces.
I refuse to be on book of faces.
I've lost out on deals/opportunities because of this. I don't regret it one bit.

[Tiki]

Originally Posted by hufnagel

i've never been on book of faces.
I refuse to be on book of faces.
I've lost out on deals/opportunities because of this. I don't regret it one bit.

+1

Along those lines, it really annoys me when businesses run specials to "like us on facebook" in order to get a discount.

I will resist as long as I can.

[jchiso]

I generally hate to bring it up in generic company, because people tend to brand folks "techno-phobes", which I certainly am not. I don't use Facebook or anything like it, nor do I own a mobile phone ...

[tmiranda]

You are all looking at FaceBook in the wrong way. Think of it as another reality show but with people you sort of know. I was contemplating writing a PlugIn to add a "FaceBook channel" to Sage.

[Opus4]

Currently, I'm viewing facebook as a challenge to see how much of my account I can lock down as private. Currently, all it shows is my name and... nothing else. And, it has the same totally transparent PNG files for the profile pics as the ones I use for google+. Uploading any type of picture seems to get them to stop asking you to upload a pic.

I thought about creating a profile pic that matches the generic image (take a photo of the back of my head w/o any lighting against a highly lit background), but that just seemed like way too much work... a transparent png was just so easy.

Andy

[KryptoNyte]

Originally Posted by Tiki

+1

Along those lines, it really annoys me when businesses run specials to "like us on facebook" in order to get a discount.

I will resist as long as I can.

Yes, this is silly. Most of the time the facebook deal they are running has little to no real value, or it's a company that can't figure out how to have a proper website/advertising.

I'm not a total tinfoil hat kind of guy, but data mining at the cost of the privacy of decent people - that's just low. Google is bad enough, facebook even worse - can you imagine the terminator that luminosity.com is building?

[tmiranda]

Originally Posted by KryptoNyte

... Google is bad enough, facebook even worse ...

I think you have that backwards. One of my clients works as IT as a contractor to one of the government agencies. He worked on that big data center in Utah (I think it was Utah) and tells me that data from Google helps fill up all of those petabytes.....

On the other hand he tells me if you want to send something securely use AOL because their IT guys are too stupid to collect anything important

[KryptoNyte]

Originally Posted by tmiranda

On the other hand he tells me if you want to send something securely use AOL because their IT guys are too stupid to collect anything important

Ha!

Hey, thanks for fixing up this thread title, Andy, to make it more suitable.

[stanger89]

Originally Posted by tmiranda

You are all looking at FaceBook in the wrong way. Think of it as another reality show but with people you sort of know. I was contemplating writing a PlugIn to add a "FaceBook channel" to Sage.

I think that just makes it worse

[Opus4]

Originally Posted by KryptoNyte

Hey, thanks for fixing up this thread title, Andy, to make it more suitable.

Uh... that's the original unedited title. I've always been into anti-social networking, long before it was cool.

Andy

[Tiki]

Originally Posted by tmiranda

You are all looking at FaceBook in the wrong way. Think of it as another reality show but with people you sort of know. I was contemplating writing a PlugIn to add a "FaceBook channel" to Sage.

Considering how much I loathe "reality" TV, perhaps that explains my lack of interest in Facebook.

[Skirge01]

Originally Posted by Tiki

Considering how much I loathe "reality" TV, perhaps that explains my lack of interest in Facebook.

You beat me to it.

[SWKerr]

Just because you have it does not mean you have to use it as they intend.
Aside from finding out about my next High school reunion or when someone's parent passed away it just does not serve a real purpose for me.
The real problem is adding friends that treat it like it is Twitter. Probably a way to quarantine those people but that would mean figuring out how to actually use it.

Although: I actually like the log on with Facebook options as opposed to having a 100 different accounts for various sites.

[pjpjpjpj]

Originally Posted by SWKerr

The real problem is adding friends that treat it like it is Twitter.

To be fair, that's how Facebook started and what it was originally for. Twitter was born from a simplification of this.

Originally Posted by SWKerr

Probably a way to quarantine those people but that would mean figuring out how to actually use it.

Click on the little "options" indicator in the upper right of someone's post. You can hide them from your wall (but keep them "friended"). As I indicated in my previous post, I have most of my friends hidden (though not because of too many posts, but the content thereof).

Originally Posted by Skirge01

Just an FYI that you're using Facebook to do what Twitter was designed for.

To be honest, the one night (about 6 years ago when I'd just joined) when I went around and "liked" all of those restaurants, bands, and TV shows, I didn't even realize it would sign me up to see everything they post on my wall. 99% of the stuff posted by those places/things isn't anything I care about (to the point where I doubt I'd even follow them on Twitter if I used it). More than that, I still have a handful of friends who don't post that often on Facebook but I enjoy when they do, and they wouldn't be on Twitter... plus I wouldn't be able to be "in touch" with them if needed (as I am with those friended people on Facebook).

As little use as I have for Facebook in the grand scheme of things, I really don't understand Twitter. How is it anything other than simply ego-stroking? If you are posting funny things, you are doing it to show off how clever you are and gain the ego boost of having people tell you so. If you are an athlete or celebrity, at the base of every post is "don't you wish you were me?", "isn't my life great?", and even simpler, the ability to see how popular you are based on number of followers. And even with people who tweet legit news items (i.e., eyewitnesses to a catastrophe), most of that is based in a "I was there, I saw it first!" ego stroke (considering that, in most of those cases, the prudent thing to do would be to either get your butt to safety, or help those in trouble, rather than tweeting about the thing you just witnessed.)

[stanger89]

Originally Posted by SWKerr

Although: I actually like the log on with Facebook options as opposed to having a 100 different accounts for various sites.

https://lastpass.com/

[Skirge01]

Originally Posted by pjpjpjpj

As little use as I have for Facebook in the grand scheme of things, I really don't understand Twitter. How is it anything other than simply ego-stroking? If you are posting funny things, you are doing it to show off how clever you are and gain the ego boost of having people tell you so. If you are an athlete or celebrity, at the base of every post is "don't you wish you were me?", "isn't my life great?", and even simpler, the ability to see how popular you are based on number of followers. And even with people who tweet legit news items (i.e., eyewitnesses to a catastrophe), most of that is based in a "I was there, I saw it first!" ego stroke (considering that, in most of those cases, the prudent thing to do would be to either get your butt to safety, or help those in trouble, rather than tweeting about the thing you just witnessed.)

Again, you're thinking about it like it's Facebook and a LOT of Twitter users make the same mistake. I constantly hear about people trying to get celebrities to follow them. Why? Do they really think a celebrity is interested in whatever they have to say? Nope... it's a status thing for them, just like on FB and the number of friends they have. You only follow someone if you actually care about what they're tweeting. If it's mostly useless stuff (like most of what people post on FB), then you shouldn't be following them, regardless of whether you like them [as a band; as an actor; as a company]. It's easy enough to unfollow, too, and no one gets upset like on FB. I quoted this on the Sage forums before:

Twitter makes you like people you've never met and Facebook makes you hate people you know in real life.

If you're following people you know in real life, you're doing it wrong.
If you're spending tons of time getting caught up on things, you're doing it wrong.
If you're reading things you don't care about, you're doing it wrong.
If you're following a ton of people, you're (probably) doing it wrong.

I follow 8 people who are at least semi-famous, don't tweet all that much, and--most of the time--Tweet things that I'm interested in hearing about. If you can get the information elsewhere, it probably shouldn't be on Twitter.

Twitter isn't meant for nobody's, like me, to join and start looking for people to follow me. In fact, I report anyone who does because it's usually spam accounts. To illustrate this fact, my Twitter profile reads, "Unless I'm following you, there's no reason to follow me. I'm really not that interesting." The only Twitter users who should be expecting to get followers are famous people or companies. For people like me, I use Twitter to follow 1 band to find out when they're going on tour because it doesn't happen very often. I follow a couple indie game companies or developers to find out what their next game might be, when a Kickstarter might be coming, provide feedback on a game I'm playing, etc. I follow a couple of actors because they're funny on Twitter and don't post very often. I follow 1 person to find out when they're livestreaming a game because their commentary is damned funny.

None of the people I'm following are sending out tweets because of an ego.

Hope that helped a little bit.

[waynedunham]

Originally Posted by Opus4

So was I the last facebook holdout? They finally defeated me.

I joined just so I could subscribe to the events of an NYC-based Clash tribute band who came to a location near me in NJ and I missed it because I didn't know they would be there.

I was hoping to have no FB posts, but apparently they put a life event on my timeline... I can't delete the 'birth' event, but I think I can at least hide the date.

facebook... do I really have to? ... rats <sigh>

Andy

I see from some of the other replies that I am not alone in holding out from registering on Failbook, and Twatter.

In the immortal words of Captain Jason Nesmith (Galaxy Quest) "Never give up, NEVER surrender!!"

Failbook and Twatter, the land of a bazillion opera wannabes all trying to drown out everyone else with their own cries of "ME, ME, ME, ME, ME!!"

[KryptoNyte]

Originally Posted by Opus4

Uh... that's the original unedited title. I've always been into anti-social networking, long before it was cool.

Andy

Ah.

I must have had a mental block on the anti-social networking part.

Carry on.

[Opus4]

Originally Posted by KryptoNyte

Carry on.

That just seems like it ought to be part of that movie series... "Carry On Networking": the farcical behind the scenes look at a new social networking startup that no one wants to join.

Andy