Facebook

[Bike Chick]

No games, no groups, no apps here.

I use it quite a bit as a news aggregator, to get notifications of rides, events and schedule changes from the bike club (the reason I joined to begin with) and the yoga studio, to find out the night's specials at a few favorite restaurants, and to keep up with a small group of people that I know IRL.

That's the reason we joined too, Oak. It's very handy for posting rides and notifications. And I have blocked all games.

[Veronica]

No Facebook here. They have no respect for the users' privacy.

If you use it and you don't pay for it, YOU are the product being sold.


Veronica

[roadie gal]

No Facebook here. They have no respect for the users' privacy.

If you use it and you don't pay for it, YOU are the product being sold.


Veronica

1++++ on this. I refuse to subscribe to the FB business model.

I hear a lot about reconnecting with people. I guess I'm a grinch of sorts. If I haven't spoken to someone for 30 years, why do I want to start now? I have a hard enough time keeping up with my family.

[kjay]

No Facebook here. They have no respect for the users' privacy.

If you use it and you don't pay for it, YOU are the product being sold.


Veronica

Do you have an example or two? Just curious.

[OakLeaf]

Do you have an example or two? Just curious.

Facebook? Twitter? Google? Yahoo, even? Store loyalty cards?

And if TE isn't data mining us, they're missing a big opportunity ... obviously they take informal notice of what we say here and use it to increase their bottom line, as they should.

[kjay]

Facebook? Twitter? Google? Yahoo, even? Store loyalty cards?

And if TE isn't data mining us, they're missing a big opportunity ... obviously they take informal notice of what we say here and use it to increase their bottom line, as they should.

Guess I don't understand how data mining is necessarily disadvantageous. Any examples of that? Thanks.

[shootingstar]

Data mining in the social media context is getting into personal details about ourselves. Unless I've misunderstood Oakleaf's point.

Already we're showered with spam junk in other electronic ways.

[emily_in_nc]

I just signed up for FB about two weeks ago after resisting for years. It finally got to the point that so many links were on FB that I couldn't get to that I gave in. A lot of these have to do with our condo in Belize -- FB is huge down there as cell phone minutes are very pricey compared to in the states, so people tend to email and FB more than call or text. So many businesses post specials and information via FB only that you almost have to be on.

I have only allowed 7 friends so far, and all those are real friends except for a semi-crazy aunt I have who I didn't really want to be watching me. Before I signed up, I researched how to set my privacy settings super high so that only friends can see anything I do, I can't be found through google or FB searches, and I even managed to block my aunt specifically from reading my status updates or seeing new photos I post. I just don't want to share everything with her!

Most of my friends who are on FB used it to reconnect with high school or college friends, but I really haven't wanted it for that at all. One of my friends is my best friend from HS, but she would be my friend with or without FB. I mostly signed up to connect with businesses, as I mentioned, and to see vacation photos from a few special friends.

So far, other than the first couple days when I was getting it set up, I've only spent 10-15 minutes per day on it, and that I can easily handle.

Now Twitter...another story!