Facebook... a tool to connect with your friends.

In 2007, I wasn't intending to open one. My boss made me. He said it was good for marketing.
So it began, I opened it, and began playing with it.
After I moved to another job, I kept it, and made it my personal account, began to look for my friends and yes, connect with them.

I am now a Facebook Ninja. I know how to keep my stuff private, what to hide, how to stop receiving Farmville updates even if I don't play it... oh and I know how to see your pics even if you hide them (some of them).

Now the social media craze is here and very real and I need to deal with it in a professional way, since I am a technical adviser in the web field. I need to play with the "like" button, the social graph, I need to make my data available, I need to expose my persona.

So I am taking the decision to kill my personal Facebook account, and recreate one only for research purpose.
The new account will include nothing from my private life, and I will not add anybody I know personally or consider a Friend.

Why?

Practical reasons:

• I do not share much personal items. Actually, I never do. My digressions are all in my personal blog.

• I've had enough of being tagged in useless photos. It happens much more often than you think.

• I do not want to be tagged in silly web pages when the Facebookers finally come to use it on regular basis.

• I've had my share of Facebook drama. I am tired of people asking why I am a female on Facebook (damn, they know me physically) and make a fuss out of a "wrong button" moment.

• I am tired of the "Please, add me, pleaaaase" requests from people I barely know. Like having a lot of "Facebook friends" is an achievement in life.

• I prefer getting to know someone by having a cup of coffee to reading a profile.

• I want to pool my data somewhere else. I actually find Facebook unpractical, the features it offers are way better in dedicated sites (Deviant Art for my photos, Posterous for my rants).
  

• I do not want my behavior to belong to Facebook. I'm not a conspiracy theorist, but having Google tracking everything I do is already enough. I can't get rid of my Google account for both practical and professional reasons, but I'd do it if I could. It has nothing to do with paranoia, I don't have anything to hide. It's just that my life is mine. I'm territorial.

• I am curious, I want to know the alternatives to everything. I am not using 10% of what Google has to offer because I use alternatives, I want to explore the vastness of the web, and I feel that Facebook is the lazy way to do so.

• There must be a way to keep on sharing like crazy while keeping your privacy as you want it, that doesn't force your friends to join a network or another, I want to find it.
  

Nope. I have 139 Friends on Facebook, I have met them all (minus one or two people) at least once, and deleting that account will delete my Fabebook Bound to them. By creating another persona, I will start from scratch, and never include my private life, the approach is entirely different. Plus, ignoring Facebook now would make me the most incompetent person in my field right now, and I don't want it to happen any time soon :D

Stay tuned for the updates, starting tomorrow!

Posted via email from Living Without Facebook - A diary