Tag Archives: myspace

I’ve deleted my MySpace, Facebook, and LinkedIn accounts

December 6th, 2007

In January of this year I signed up to MySpace and I’ve logged in about a half-dozen times since to check messages, reply to comments, and upload a few profile photos.

Shortly after that I signed up to Facebook and did just about the same thing. I logged in from time-to-time to catch up on friend requests, see if I liked any of the new applications, and then logged back out.

I’m not even sure when I opened my LinkedIn account but I’ve never taken full advantage of what it has to offer. Many of my “connections” on LinkedIn were not really work related and so I felt my profile on LinkedIn lacked the legitimacy that LinkedIn was trying to build. I’ve asked LinkedIn to cancel my account, via email since that is the only option at this point, so we’ll see how long that takes.

Here is what I said regarding my intial experience with MySpace:

“But once you force yourself to get beyond that, there is a “valuable” service underlying in there somewhere. In amongst the error-ridden web site is a service that actually helps you to connect with people you wouldn’t have otherwise.”

I still stand by the above statement today. If you are having trouble finding the people you went to High School with look no further than using MySpace, and/or Facebook, because it seems that just about everyone on the planet with access to the Internet has signed up to either of these two services at some point.

My main reason for closing both my MySpace and Facebook accounts is because I believe that the value in these services is equal to the effort you are willing to put into them. As with any social network – you get what you put in. Unfortunately for me I’ve been unable to find the value in either of these services beyond the initial contact I’ve been able to make with those I haven’t been able to otherwise.

Side note: MySpace and Facebook have similar methods of deleting your account. I like MySpace’s method because they ask you for a reason, and I like Facebook’s method because they try to educate you on features they have based on your reason(s) for leaving. Pretty slick. LinkedIn, like Viddler, asks that you email them for deleting the account. As long as the response is fairly prompt, I think this method is fine too.

I’m not sure if this is a good idea or not, but I’ve been wanting to take this plunge since mid-summer and I’m relieved I’ve finally done it. There are a few other social networks that I am on the fence about, but they typically do something that other social networks simply do not do (or I use them a bunch) so I’m holding onto those accounts for a while longer. Have you ever thought about closing any of your social networking accounts?

I’m on MySpace

January 16th, 2007

Why? I signed up a few weeks ago for the very first time as an experiment to see if it really worked. I’ve always heard that if you got onto MySpace, setup your profile a little, and just waited – that people would find you. And I can tell you that it is completely true.

But why did I wait so long? Because almost every user of MySpace seems to be a self-indulged teenager (or a 40-year old pervert pretending to be the same) that sits on MySpace all day and edits their profile to include audio from the top 40, flash animations of butterfly tattoos, and graphics that literally crash your computer when you load the page. It seemed completely and utterly valueless to spend any amount of time on MySpace.

But once you force yourself to get beyond that, there is a “valuable” service underlying in there somewhere. In amongst the error-ridden web site is a service that actually helps you to connect with people you wouldn’t have otherwise. Popularity wins in this case because finding the people I went to High School with is pretty much impossible without MySpace. In fact, 90% of them don’t even put their real names on MySpace so unless they provided a photo I still wouldn’t have found them.

So, I now have a profile. You can add me as a friend but I’m only accepting friends whom I’ve actually met in real life.

This will probably be the first, and last, post I do about MySpace. Similar to the first, and last, post that I wrote on my MySpace blog. Now if I could just find the latest Britney Spears song to add to my profile…

[tags]myspace, profile, colin devroe, britney spears[/tags]
[slug]my-myspace[/slug]

My 2007 Web 2.0 Death list

January 7th, 2007

Paul Scrivens recently said he’d like to see three “Web 2.0″ companies (or services) go the way of the dinosaur in 2007. He also asked for people to post theirs, and there are some great ones in the comments of his post.

So here are mine and remember, these are not predictions – just some services I wouldn’t mind disappearing.

  • Digg is simply annoying. The editorial process is no longer very valid and some of its features are definitely abused. I still use the service from time to time but I’d like to see a competitor come along that does a much better job.
  • MySpace (which also made Paul’s list) is just horrible to use. I find it incredibly ironic that one of the hardest sites to use is also one of the most popular and used by the most inexperienced of Internet users. Again, I’d love to see a few of its competitors get a big break.
  • Basecamp is one of the more popular “project management” applications (especially in my industry). I really do not like this application and I am sometimes forced to use it. I think the application is built and designed well, it is simply not built for the way I think.

Again, I do not foresee any of these services disappearing this year (even though some have predicted the downfall of Digg).

Do you have three services that you either have to use or would love to use but you simply would like to see them improved, replaced, or just “die” in 2007?

[tags]digg, myspace, basecamp, web 2.0, death list, paul scrivens, wisdump[/tags]
[slug]web20-deathlist07[/slug]