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New Year Resolution: Clean up social networking

I don’t do New Year resolutions. Honest. I mean, it’s just one more day and a public holiday to allow us to nurse our hangovers in peace, right? Still, I know plenty of people do them, but if you think you’re going to make yourself over, you’re in for a rude shock. Instead, I’m picking a few minor changes to make with realistic goals that I think will improve me overall.

There’s no doubt that social networking is both useful and fun. But it’s become a bit of a hodgepodge of interconnected services that overlap, never find wide-enough traction to be useful, or are just plain dangerous. I’m not going into another rant about what I do and don’t like — this is about personal preference. I am, however, going to clean up my act and start walking the walk.

fuckingloveFacebook

The big one. I’m going to spend January on a self-imposed exile from Facebook. Somehow in the last 12 months, it’s gone from photos of parties, weddings and babies to reshares from irrelevant celebrities (whose posts I suspect are largely ghost-written), and pages like “I fucking love fridays, like if you agree” (see to the right; I suspect are largely spam farms). All of a sudden, I discovered that I wanted to know what my friends had for lunch today. Wasn’t that the point? To stay in touch and keep up to date?

I also had a couple recent run-ins with the way FB handles privacy. While I’ll admit an amount of user error, the service actually makes it easy to screw things up. Rather than risk further stuff ups, I think that it’s definitely time for me to put up or shut up on this. However, before I jump ship there are things that I need to do.

Clean up my “Friends” list

Let’s be honest here. Not everyone you are connected to on Facebook is actually a friend. And this is a huge source of potentially damaging overshare. Paring things down to people I actually know and care about will not only help me feel comfortable about using FB, it will actually help surface relevant posts on my News Feed.

So, at the risk of upsetting some people, here are some questions that I asked myself to trim things down:

  • Have they deactivated their account?
  • Have they posted at all recently?
  • What’s the signal to noise ratio (mostly in the form of crappy shares)?
  • Have we interacted much, either in real life or on Facebook?
  • Do I keep in touch with them more regularly in other ways?

I’m actually already seeing an improvement on my feed.

Disconnect Apps and Sites

Facebook is a convenient identity manager, which means that using it to connect applications and websites for login/authentication purposes is very easy and useful. However, that use pretty much goes hand-in-hand with access to your personal data and the ability to post on your timeline. I guess I’m ok with that… kinda. But you need to be able to trust these services with that sort of capability. So I’m cutting ties with apps that I don’t trust, don’t use or don’t care about.

Uninstall notification sources

This is mostly the iPhone app. I need to do more than just disable notifications; I need to make it harder for me to post, or “just check it”. I’ve also disabled a browser extension that notifies me. I might look for (or write) a Chrome extension that blocks access to certain sites — at least for the month of exile.

Twitter

I’m on the fence with Twitter. I barely look at it, and my following list is all over the shop. There’s not a whole lot there, and I use it mainly as a broadcast mechanism for my blog posts. I’ll probably leave it for now; there’s not a lot of private data there, so I’ll leave it for now.

photoPath

I really like the idea of Path. It’s a single-purpose sharing app that I kind of wish Facebook was. You’re supposed to only connect to close friends and family, and then you share life events, photos, locations, music and thoughts. You know, the little things that are important. Unfortunately, it will probably never get real traction in my circles. I think I’ll leave it, as it’s my preferred way of posting to Facebook. I just need to be a little vigilant about who it actually shares with.

Foursquare

Ugh. I don’t know why I keep using Foursquare. It was kind of fun at the beginning, but the gamification of going places has lost its appeal. I don’t look at it, and I only really check in because Path cross-posts. Ok, that seals it.

That was easy. One click, a quick exit survey, and an assurance that it’s gone and irreversible. Nothing like the nonsense you get from attempting to cancel a Facebook account. Kudos to Foursquare!

Google

Ok. Full disclosure for those who don’t know it: I work for Google. This blog is a record of my personal views, and do not necessarily reflect the views of my employer.

Google is a huge set of services, and the social strategy is a way to make search (and ads) more relevant to users. If you don’t like it, you don’t have to have an account, you can disable search history, and you can use Private Browsing/Incognito mode.

On the other hand, ads mean that the service is free, and your data is not sold to third parties. You’re just a number, and space on your screen is sold to third parties. Google is an intermediary and an obfuscator.

That being said, I like having my number connected to other numbers that would possibly be more relevant to me. I don’t mind clicking on ads if they link to the services and products I’m looking for. I mean, I would get to that site anyway.

Google is also an OAuth provider. In short, that means I can use it as a way of logging into websites that support it. It means that I don’t need a new password for every site. While that’s similar to “Log in with Facebook”, it doesn’t mean that I have to grant access to parts of my account that are superfluous to the service (like my birthday, my friends list, and the ability to post on my wall).

I trust all of this because I have insider information on the way it all works. Google uses all this technology internally, and we wouldn’t do it if we didn’t trust it. You don’t have to, and that’s fine. This isn’t a sales pitch, just my reasoning.

All that was a prelude to…

Google+

No sermons, just keep it sweet. I like the privacy settings. Every time I post, I’m asked who I want to post to, and it’s obvious. There’s no escaping that question.

plushare

It’s not empty. The media only perceives it that way because most of the posts are private. The only way the media and analysts can measure the activity on Google+ is based on public posts. Doesn’t that tell you something?

Google+ also recognises that relationships aren’t always a two-way thing. That idiot you always fought with in high school that has mellowed, but you still hold a grudge? They can add you to their circle, but you don’t have to. And they will only see your public posts. If somebody shares something from BMW and you hate cars, then you can block BMW without blocking the person who shared it, and you’ll never see posts by BMW again.

Anyway, I’ve set up my circles so I can share like I want to on Facebook. I’ll be much more regular on G+ than anywhere else, and even make the occasional public post. Circle me, and I might even circle you back. You might even make my Friends circle.

gplus.to/davidbyrne

 

 

2 replies on “New Year Resolution: Clean up social networking”

I think I’m in Google +…. errrrr…. no where else… I must be really unsociable. ^_~

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