24 Oct
Facebook Account Deactivated
Not to be too dramatic about it, but I decided to deactivate my facebook account today. It feels a bit like I’m going against the tide as Facebook is growing at an insane (129% growth in September, 07) level. I “get” Facebook and what it’s all about (unlike a certain pastor 
), I’ve had a Facebook account for over a year now since before they opened it up to allow anyone to join. I’ve witnessed the masses come and join up as for the longest time I had one friend. Then all of a sudden it just exploded and everyone and their dog was on facebook. I have grown tired of the people who claimed to “not get” facebook, like it was some technology that you had to “get” in order to use. I heard the same claims from people when blogging first started to take off. This isn’t rocket surgery here folks. Sign up, tell people how you feel, upload a picture and then watch what everyone else is doing for 8 hours a day. It’s blogging made easy where everyone else’s picture/text/video/etc comes to you instead of you having to go out and find it.
And that’s one of three reasons as to why I dropped my account. As goofy as it sounds, I miss the good ‘ole days of proper blogging and having to actually put some thought into what you were spewing on to the internet. Not that a lot of blogs are all that much better, but at least you have to do more than just update your status (”I’m so tired today.” “I’m tired again” “Still tired” “Work is hard”) and form a bit of a thought as to what you may write on your blog.
The second reason is that I don’t really like where facebook is right now nor where it’s headed. They’re basically a walled-garden where you can go in and look but can’t take anything out. You upload your picture/video/etc into facebook but then can’t get it out to use on a different site. Whereas flickr.com, last.fm, youtube.com, twitter.com, and many others allow you to upload your picture/video/etc and then use it on other websites, including and perhaps especially facebook, anything uploaded to facebook is stuck on facebook. It’s great from facebook’s standpoint because then everyone has to come there to look at any picture/video/etc rather than going out to all those other sites. It keeps the eyeballs on their advertising.
Which brings me to the third reason I dropped my facebook account. It’s an advertising dream. You tell facebook your name, age, sex, marital status, let them know of any other relationships you have with other facebook users (i.e. sisters, brothers, parents, extended family, etc) and then start updating your status and uploading pictures/video, and making sure to properly tag any pictures with a description and whoever else might be in the pictures. Facebook can now sell very specific and directed advertising right to you. Say I’m someone who sells a widget that I know only married women who have at least 1 brother, have been on a trip to Mexico, list Martha Stewart and Green Day as part their favorites, and are between the ages of 25 and 40 - Facebook can sell me that kind of targeted advertising. Brilliant on facebook’s part. I just don’t want to keep contributing to the machine.
Facebook is great at what it does. It very well is/could be the next great thing and is the evolutionary step (phone - email - blogging - facebook?), but like some people I know decided to get off the train at blogging, I think I’m getting off here and at least for now, letting this one pass me by.
Phew. That went longer than I thought. Any comments/questions/concerns? I’d like to hear what you think of facebook and why you have or haven’t joined.
Posted by Matthew on 24.10.07 at 6:53 pm
Atta boy Chris - I’m really getting ready to leave but haven’t made the jump yet. I think that my blog gets about 10X the exposure from being on facebook though because no one knows about rss feeds…
Posted by Wade on 24.10.07 at 6:53 pm
I applaud you. I dropped FBook a while back, and I feel better for it. I also blogged my feeling on this matter recently.
P.S. why do you require my email addy when I want to comment. Are you selling my info!?
Posted by Chris on 24.10.07 at 6:53 pm
It’s so that I can spam you later when I setup my new website - http://www.chrisbook.com.
Posted by Facebook Beacon on 24.10.07 at 6:53 pm
[...] a follow-up to my earlier post on why I dumped Facebook, here’s a bit of a “I told you [...]
Posted by zosia ostrowski on 24.10.07 at 6:53 pm
hello i would like my account on face book deleted
thanks
Posted by iChris on 24.10.07 at 6:53 pm
Hi Zosia (if you are a real person). This wouldn’t be the place to deactivate your facebook account. You’ll have to go under your account settings on facebook.com
Posted by Lucas on 24.10.07 at 6:53 pm
Hahahahaha… are you serious about your comment of not being able to get your photos back out of facebook? Are you kidding…
first off…to get it into facebook in the first place, you must have had the files saved to your computer or memory stick..
Secondly you can right click and “save as”, choose a location on your computer and save the pic…. no idea what you are talking about when you say you can’t get your images back out… quite simple..I just did it this morning.
Also, I think you are mistake about the Good old days of Blogging..facebook is not a block, its a social network…of course people will change their status to “I’m tired” or “work is hard” … simply because the entire universe is not looking to write significant blogs. The majority of people signing up to facebook do so to enable easier interaction with friends and the ability to reach out to all friends though one simple interface… to post info about events etc. Its simly the phonebook, calandar and daily newspaper tailored to your specific life….. its not mean to be focussed on blogging. …. but then again..you don’t have to “get it”
Finally in regards to advertising and privacy… you’ve missed the point.. advertising is about reaching out en-masse to people with a generally broad message.. if if they are targeting… hey are targeting thousand..if not hundreds of thousands.. big brand advertisers don’t care in the least to know about who your mom is, what her hobbies are, who you hang out with… the data is to fragmented and does not yeild enough users to be of any value. What the real concern is that your information can be shared with government agencies.. facebook was originally funded by a shell company of the CIA, thats what you should care about, not the advertings.. though I do understand the issues with Beacon.. that aside, the general advertising program on facebook is not as highly targeted as you may think.
Cheers and hopefully this was of some use to you.
Posted by Brad on 24.10.07 at 6:53 pm
Lucas, I think the point on photos/vid etc. was to be able to link from other sites back to those items hosted on facebook.
You are right, however, to make the point that facebook is a ’social network’. Perhaps it’s not everybody’s ideal method of social interaction though… personally, I found it frustrating that I often had to invite 10/15/20 friends to add the same application as I wanted to use to make it work. That, to me, makes the social networking experience both tedious and sometimes seemingly pretentious.
I have deactivated my account - at least for now… I also have a myspace site which I prefer because it gives me the functionality I want and I only have to trust myspace with my info - not a million and one different application vendors… in saying that, I’m not claiming to trust or distrust myspace or anyone else on the internet… it’s more a matter of risk minimalization.
Peace
Posted by alexandria on 24.10.07 at 6:53 pm
Why can’t I setup a facebook page on facebook?
Posted by iChris on 24.10.07 at 6:53 pm
Lucas: I was actually referring to not be able to _easily_ move my photos around like you can with flickr (or any number of other photo sites) through rss feeds and open APIs.
Alexandria: While this isn’t the best place for facebook support, I’d say that if you’ve setup an account on facebook you’ve gotten a page on facebook. When you login and click on “profile” at the top, that’s the page everyone else will see when they are your friend.
Posted by Need Help Badly | Faraway, So Close on 24.10.07 at 6:53 pm
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