Facebook… sigh and bye

Last May, Christian author and head of Lifeway Research Ed Stetzer deleted his personal Facebook account. (Read his entry here.) It was in response to Facebook’s seemingly intentional thumbed-nose to its users’ desires for privacy. I was also frustrated with Facebook’s haughty attitude, but I thought, “I really can’t complain. It’s a free service.”

Also in May 2010, when Stetzer wrote his rant, he linked an article Facebook’s Gone Rogue; It’s Time for an Open Alternative by Ryan Singel of Wired.com. Reading that article today makes me feel like Ryan is a prophet.

This week, Facebook rolled out a ton of changes and probably what they deem as improvements. Some are helpful; most are radically intrusive; and others are outright copies of new-kid-on-the-social-media-block Google+. The net is buzzing with opinions. I’m one of those that literally hates the new changes and the directions Facebook has announced that it’s heading in.

Yes, I’m complaining today – with thousands of others. Here’s a sampling of articles today found after Googling “Facebook changes.”

• Changes creeping out some customers
• 7 drastic Facebook changes you will probably hate
• Does Facebook really care about you?

I didn’t delete my Facebook account last year. I doubt that I will delete it in 2011. However, the way I use Facebook changes today. I will no longer feed the machine. I will use it.

Essentially, this means that I’ll be systematically deleting material from my Facebook account, and that what I post there will esssentially result in an online business card residing on Facebook for people that need to know how to contact me.

Facebook is already a distraction. Yet, Facebook is also very helpful for communicating with a generation of social media users that disdain or don’t return email. I will continue to use Facebook for communication purposes, but I will encourage those who want to dialogue to use email.

I simply don’t want Facebook archiving my life. Rushkoff hit the nail on the head with me. I find it difficult to trust Mark Zuckerburg. He makes me nervous. He has led Facebook to become a monolithic, amoral, juggernaut.

I’ll be retreating to my blog and websites that I control. My social media preference will continue to be focused on Twitter and I’ll begin trying Google+ on for size.

When Stetzer left Facebook last year, I thought it was a bad decision to simply bail. There were an estimated 500 million users on Facebook last May. Today, Facebook claims 800 million users! That’s a lot of people that one can influence positively… or negatively. As much as I hate the directions Facebook is heading (and it may be purely preferential), I am not willing to delete my account or say goodbye to the network of friendships that I’ve cultivated, initiated and renewed there. I am grateful for Facebook 1.0 – 2.0, after all.

However, I keep having this nagging tech nightmare that we’ll wake up in 1984. In Orwell’s futuristic cautionary tale, the world is manipulated by Big Brother who accomplishes constant citizen surveillance, inflicts mind control and subordinates the populace for the supposed greater good.

My fear is that Facebook indeed wants to rule our minds. Unlike.

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Peoplebrowsr.com

I just wrote a review of streamy.com last month. It’s a service that gives you Tweetdeck-like functions in a beautiful website. I was so impressed, I set it to my homepage.

It didn’t stay on my radar screen long.

Enter peoplebrowsr.com.

You’ll notice quickly that it has the ability to display as many columns as you want. You can shrink the column width or expand it. From there on it, it’s just downright amazing/fun to discover all that this site (and its corresponding Adobe Air app) can do. Everything is mouse-able.

I particularly love the ability to view my Twitter contacts’ “@” replies as a threaded conversation. That’s extremely handy for figuring what in the world is going on in your Twitterverse. Sure beats scrolling back a mile to figure out who said what.

Hovering over any contact photo gives you a plethora of options to respond to your contacts. Shift-clicking on a status update allows you do something pretty nifty… create a Tag Group.

The Adobe Air app has all the same features of the web site. One of the amazing things you’ll find about peoplebrowsr is that after many minutes exploring, you’ll discover that there are different levels of use for different levels of users. I typically use the Lite Mode, but there is also Advanced and Business Modes. Very nice.

The Settings are also a great feature at the bottom of the window. You have all kinds of options, and you can even change settings per each column.

If you’re looking for an all-in-one social media browser that combines the two most popular services – Facebook and Twitter, you may have finally found a great solution. Better than Tweetdeck. More full featured than Streamy. At home on whatever computer you choose… PeopleBrowsr.

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Streamy is dreamy

Most of you know I’m an early adopter. Heck, I’m not just early, but I’m there in the delivery room, cheering on the birth of new techs, eager to cut the umbilical cord. (This is figurative because after my last literal experience doing that, I don’t think “eager” would describe my attitude…) However, I love to follow new technologies, particularly in the social media venue.

That’s why I accidentally sent out a massive bulk email last week from Friendfeed. I thought I was searching for my friends that already use the service (turns out, all 5 of them). What I actually did, however, was send an email to my entire Google contacts database – more than 1000 – urging folks to use Friendfeed. Don’t. It’s just not ready yet for consumer use. I don’t have time hear to gripe about FF’s imperfections (and they are many).

However, I saw a quick review of a service I’d not heard of called Streamy.com on TechCrunch.com, and of course, I clicked over to the service with mounting excitement. I had soothing baby music ready to play as I coddled this new addition to the world of lifestreaming. What I found, however, was a pretentious preteen. It was a full-featured, fast and consumer friendly service!

I had some problem figuring out how to create my account rather than just linking one with Facebook (in itself a nice feature). After solving that, I was off and running. The screenshot below shows you how I’ve configured (so far) my custom Streamy window.

Within a few moments, however, I was disappointed that I was apparently going to have to enter manually each blog I follow. I couldn’t figure out how to import my feeds from Bloglines or Google Reader. I clicked over to support (they use Get Satisfaction), found others with a similar question and clicked “I have the same question.”

Imagine my surprise when within a few hours later, I was notifed by email via the Get Satisfaction site that Streamy.com had created the option to import feeds from Bloglines, Google Reader and exported opml files! Talk about service (and satisfaction!).

I’ve now made Streamy.com my homepage in Safari and Firefox, and find that I am enjoying it more than drifting back and forth between Twitter and Facebook. I like it better than Tweetdeck because I can also keep up with my blog subscriptions. Yes, you can post to Facebook, Twitter and other services from it as well.

Swing by and check out Streamy. It may have, in one fell swoop, put Friendfeed and other services in the grave trying to keep up. (Of course, most parents of preteens feel that way at one point.)

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Facebook 2009 like MySpace 2006

Here’s the text of a recent comment I left on Facebook founder Mark Zuckerburg’s fan page:

Facebook is getting as busy as MySpace was when I left the latter for that reason three years ago.

PLEASE remove all the junk from the Lifestream. 90% of folks don’t want to know who made what moves in a Connect 4 game. Neither do we want to read the content of what someone wrote on someone’s wall.

Just status updates and options to include other stuff like Story Posts or Pictures.

Facebook’s wonderful simplicity was what made it so popular (and what is helping Twitter become a steamroller).

Too much is too much. The KISS adage holds true for most of us. Please, keep it simple.

The current design is simply, well, too much like MySpace 2006.

What I failed to mention to him and should have was how great Facebook is. It’s because it’s such a powerful tool for relational connections that I left the comment. Too often, we’re critical of that which we love, taking for granted what (and who) we appreciate.

So, Mark, if you read that comment, stop by here and know that I love your juggernaut web creation. It’s huge. Really. I applaud your creative success. However, I (along with thousands of others) hope that the next design iteration will be more simple, less busy and less intrusive on our personal information streams.

Have your say:

1. Leave a comment on Mark’s fan page.
2. Join the Facebook group Petition Against the “New Facebook.”

They are listening, by the way.

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25 Things I Hate About Facebook

Don’t get me wrong… I love Facebook. It’s an amazing relational tool. I’ve had more than a dozen conversations just this week on Facebook with folks that I don’t ever see. I’ve loved the ability to catch up with old friends, particularly those from high school that I didn’t do a good job keeping up. Add to that friends and colleagues from former churches and ministries, and it’s been fun.

However, I could have produced this video. Just about every one of these things are stuff I’ve rolled my eyes and sighed excessively about before. Without any further adieu….

HT: Shane Vanderhart

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Review: AddressBookSync

Sometime ago I wrote about Facebooksync for the Mac which will make sure your friends’ contact information and profile pics are synced with the Mac Address Book. It’s been very buggy of late, and in searching for a fix or solution, I stumbled across another app: AddressBook Sync which promises to do two things:

1. Sync your Facebook friends’ profile pics with the Mac Address Book.
2. Sync your Facebook friends’ birthdays.

It will not, unfortunately, sync contact information. Apparently, this is not allowed by Facebook at this time. (A crying shame, but I certainly understand).

After a quick download from the app’s site, I am happy to say it works flawlessly and quickly. You’ll need to give it permission to access your Facebook account, but after that, you’ll get a lovely window popup showing you the current profile pics and the ones that it will be updating. You’re also given the option of keeping whichever profile pics you have. This is very useful if you have a humiliating shot of a friend that you want to pop up on your iPhone every time they call for a good laugh. Ahem. Not that I would do that to anyone I know… (but if I’m chuckling when I answer your phone call, you know why now.)

For functionality, ease of use and general all-around helpfulness, I give this app an A. For the features I’d really like (contact information syncing) but which Facebook prevents, I guess we’ll have to wait.

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Hellotxt.com – one stop updating for all services

I am completely sold on hellotxt.com. I’ve been using it for the past three days, and have had no issues with it at all. It does exactly what it says. With one entry, I can update ALL of the following services with a single click: Twitter, Pownce, Facebook, Jaiku, LinkedIn, Tumblr, and Plaxo.

That’s pretty amazing! Gone are the days of updating Facebook when I happen to be on it (which is more and more these days) and a random Twitter from my cell while I’m on the road. Now I can send the same status update to all services (if I wish). The only thing that is a small hitch is for my Tumblr blog which I have set to import updates from many of these. Unfortunately, now it means that the same status is duplicated for them. Where before my Facebook status was different from my Twitter status, now they’re the same (unless I choose to simply send it to a specified selection of the above services rather than all of them).

I can heartily and highly recommend this fantastic service!

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