Myspace, Facebook, Twitter Oh Why.

August 2010

Myspace, Facebook, Twitter Oh Why.

Finally, after you have paid your bill with Hughes, Wildblue, or Suddenlink, talked with customer service representatives and foreign speaking technical people and established a DSL connection through your home phone line or satellite, you are now on the Internet. Yayeah for you and now the bad news. You will not receive high speed internet because you do not have Comcast or Time Warner cable. That means that you will not be able to download large files over the internet or stream high definition content such as Avatar in 3D. Nevertheless, you can still check your email and search for the perfect BBQ ribs recipe for the Father's Day or the 4th of July cookout competition.

Three major players in the social networking world are Myspace, Facebook and Twitter. Myspace was the first social networking site to really grab a hold of the market share and garner main stream acknowledgement. On Myspace, you can share your likes and dislikes with your friends and other people with similar tastes. Through building a profile about yourself, you upload pictures, music, and videos that you find meaningful. When you are having an event and want to get a bunch of your family and friends together, you send out one invite with the time and place. If you simply wanted to let them know it wais your birthday in a few days or announce you are really excited about the new Apple iPad, the comments section has you covered. With the ability to approve or deny access tof your information toby a distant friend, an ex, or someone you do not know, what else can you ask for, right? Then Facebook entered the stage.

Facebook is all over the news right now for issues with its their privacy policy. The privacy policy, which we all have read word for word (yeah, right), is longer than the Constitution of the United States of America. To me, it seems that Facebook sprang up by doing what Myspace does yet for educational institutions only, since students were their primary connected users. Once Google bought Youtube for $500 million dollars, Facebook opened up all the way to bands of specific groups, companies, fan pages, everyone. Similar to Myspace, Facebook shares your current mood through live emoticons, but in addition allows you to just poke someone and bite them and send them gifts and games and suggestions. No matter the bad press and multiple design changes over the recent years, Facebook has emerged as the premier social networking site. SharesPost estimates Facebook to be worth 10 billion dollars.

Now with Twitter, which isestimated worth about a billion dollars, you type up to 142 characters of just about whatever you are doing, feeling, thinking, etcetera whatever whenever. Whether you are putting $2.89 gas in your truck or biting into a really tasty vegetable from the Farmers Market, or ROTFLMAO (rolling on the floor laughing my #@! off) at the Citizens Brigade online video spoof about the incompetent BP executives dealing with the Gulf of Mexico oil spill, everyone one subscribed to your list of friends will know it, instantly. With the ability of GPS tracking and smart phone "bumping" of contact information, to me Twitter is on the verge of TMI (too much information) IMHO (in my humble opinion). Will we be private citizens that possess some semblance of a individual personality in future years? I'll tweet you my answer.

No matter how vast the Internet has become and how cool the new iPhone 4.0 appears, nothing beats meeting people face to face or writing with pencil and paper. And as long as the stock market dips uncontrollably due to computerized technical mistakes and Steve Jobs, the CEO of Apple, can not get a dedicated internet connection during a famed Mac expo, we will not be giving up on our bread and butter of expression or communication and going totally digital too soon. When using Myspace, Facebook, or Twitter, Bbe Ccautious about what you post about yourself and who you allow to access your information online. You never know when something you said or did amongst "friends" will end up being shared with the world. FYI, Tthe Library of Congress is now archiving unprotected tweets.