Social media? Get real. It’s really all marketing machinery!
Facebook and Twitter try to keep it quiet, but a backlash against the heavy marketing (exploitation) of user information is annoying a critical mass of people. Remember, if you’re not paying for an online service, you’re not the customer; you’re the product being sold. Eli Pariser nailed it in his book, The Filter Bubble in which he quoted the blue beetle (the previous quotation.
Twitter’s recent change in API structure to limit outside app use really made a number of developers angry. (I’m fed up with spamming and sexually explicit content being direct messaged to me in Twitter.)
And now they’re fighting back.
App.net is a paid version of Twitter that promises to focus on the users and not the advertising revenue stream. I hope it is successful!
Instagram highly annoyed its user base when they tried to take ownership of their user’s photos. Good grief! Reportedly, they lost millions of users over their attempted “theft by change of policy.” What scoundrels!
And then we have Facebook. Where does one even begin with their marketing madness. Are you tired of being reminded of your deceased friend’s birthdays? Are you tired of your deceased friends “liking” products in your timeline? What horse manure! I’m seeing more and more friends take longer and longer breaks from Facebook.
And it’s not just these guys. I’m sick to death of browser pop ups. Even some of my favorite websites annoy the hell out of me with their instant surveys that you are forced to dismiss to get to the page content. I will never take one. Jerks!
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- Why Muting is the next big era of the Internet (zackshapiro.com)