Apparently Facebook is going to roll out their Timeline change as a non-negotiable upgrade (if this link is correct). That may be the straw that breaks the camel’s back for me, because its entire purpose is to make your history of everything clearer to advertisers and corporations.
And Google is apparently rolling out a non-negotiable one-username-shall-rule-them-all policy across everything they own. While in theory I like the idea of not having to log in and out everywhere, in practice it’s the same thing as the Timeline.
I cannot decide if I should just suck it up and accept that this is the way of the future, or if I should try to walk away from these networks. I hate that it’s not *easy* to walk away, but as I said on Twitter yesterday, can I not have some kind of social network that doesn’t keep “improving” itself into aggravation for its users? One which more or less everyone uses, so we can still communicate? In my heart I still want/expect Livejournal to be that source, but I don’t think people are going to come flooding back to it. I don’t know. It’s really frustrating to me, though. Arghglhg.
I’m reactivating my vanity domain email addresses, though. I will mine G+ in turn and try to get all the 700+ people who’ve circled me there onto a vanity domain mailing list of some sort, so that I still have contact with people who at least in theory want to be in contact with me. And I may even have the nerve to walk away from those two social networks. *sigh*
We can follow you here via Google Reader. And more than anything I think we all want you less aggravated so you spend time with Indy and writing…perhaps not in that particular order. :-p
I have mizkit.com on my blogroll on tambowrites and I check the blogroll every day to see who’s posted what so G+ and FB (and, let’s be honest, even Twitter) are not a concern for me, at least if I’m talking about keeping up with you.
Keeping my fans up with me, however, is another story. And, um, yeah. {{{huggs}}
Whatever works best for you is the most important I think! I like GoodReads the best. It is all about the books!!
They think they are making the site better but honestly they are not.. With all the change I decided to install a feedburner on my site so my readers can subscribe via fee and or email..
With Google’s announcement, I changed my home page to Bing.com and started looking for a new email (considering Apple). Not as concerned with FB as it is stuff that’s already been posted and you can follow directions to delete it all – with FB, the previous security leaks really disturbed me (there are search sites that grabbed you and all your friends in those previous year leaks) so I’m cautious there. I’d originally ported over to Gmail when Yahoo prevented me from logging in without a mobile phone number (they’ve since dropped that requirement – it’s a periodic request that Gmail also makes). Didn’t sign up for G+ as I like having aliases online – and without my ever having given them my real name – G+ knew it. That was scary.
Like you, still pondering my online presence. My neices say things like “gee, I’m at the lab alone and bored ..” at 2am – I won’t use any service where I can’t keep the family me separate from the public one.
Should add, I’m also coming here through my Goodreads email notification on “New blog posts by authors you’re following.”