Saturday, September 10, 2011

Social Networking Overload

I've always had a Facebook account, pretty much since it was first introduced at my school (back when you had to be at a valid school to sign up). I also had MySpace, for a while, but since most of my friends were on FB, that was the one I primarily used, and I eventually deleted my MySpace. I think. Actually, it might still be out there, but I really haven't used it since graduating college.

Well, recently I decided to try the new Google+. It seems cool enough. As far as the social aspect, it basically does the same thing, just in different ways. I kinda like the "Sparks," which is basically just a Google news search for a particular subject. So, instead of "liking" a page on FB, you basically create a custom news feed on any subject you want.

But the thing about social networking is, the "best" site is the one all your friends are using. Because, it's not that I like G+ any better or worse than FB, but even if I thought it was by far the superior option, it wouldn't do me any good if only two of my friends are using it. So . . . I check my "Sparks" regularly, and occasionally post a status update. I guess time will tell if it ever gets more use than that.

Yesterday, I finally broke down and created a Twitter account. I didn't jump on the Twitter bandwagon years ago, mostly because I had this misconception that it didn't do you any good if you didn't have a smart phone. I guess whenever I saw people using Twitter (in real life, or on screen), they were always accessing it via their phone, so I just assumed it would be pointless for me, with my standard little 12-button flip phone.

So anyway, I finally created an account yesterday. I'm currently following 19 people/organizations. I also, surprisingly, have 12 followers, only 3 of which are people I know. When I first signed up, Twitter "recommended" a bunch of people for me to follow (even though I had NO reason to follow any of them) so maybe I ended up on people's lists and they just clicked me for the sake of clicking me. /shrug I don't quite get it.

In addition to people I've never met, I'm also being followed by a few organizations I have no interest in. Maybe they just start following everyone they can in hopes that those people will follow them back? Again, I don't get it. But if @cellulite__info and the Plastic Surgery Channel want to follow me, I guess I have no control over that.

1 comment:

  1. I know this is a super late comment, but I hope you've figured out that you can actually control who follows you on twitter. You can change your settings so you have to approve people's requests to follow you.

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