Right on, man. In other words, you’re not a sheep like the rest of ‘em.. I couldn’t agree more.

I work in sales and MySpace has help up all get a better idea of what customers are looking at and get some in depth information about who they know, what they do, and when they are normally be to get a hold of. All you need to find someone on MySpace is their first and last name, and where they live.

You have nailed it with this one! I had a myspace to help promote my business when I was working with the music industry. I have listed in the ‘who i am want to meet’ as ’someone who doesn’t have myspace’. I had not deleted the thing after changing industries, but I think you have just motivated me to do so. Since when has being brainwashed by Rupert Murdoch been cool?? We bitch and moan about him buying the wall street journal which no ‘hipster’ has every read, yet defend myspace with our lives??

Amen! I agree whole-heartedly with Bing’s sentiment.

It’s nice for college students to be able to communicate with friends. I work at a university and the employers that come on campus love to look at our students’ myspace pages. Unfortunately, about 60% of the time what the students post on those pages will disqualify them from a job.

I’m a computer geek and I want to live MY life – not a virtual life. I’ll leave that to others with less interesting things to do.

I cannot agree with you more!! I’m with you on this one (and, for the record – most, but not all, of your opinions). And what I love about this country is that if you don’t like what you see, read, or hear, you CAN STOP at any time.

You’re still a loser. You’ve mentions all other things of interest yet you failed to mention how often you get laid.

Completely agree. The issue is essentially whether you want to be in charge of how you live your life or whether you want the masses to tell you how to live your life. Following the masses is not the path to greatness.

I have a myspace, everyone I know has one as well. It is an obligation when you join, many people use the network for different reasons. I think its great that you have decided not to join, I would think it just as great if you had decided to join…

I suppose what I’m saying is… Who cares.

MySpace caters to every negative human trait. People go on there to spy on each other, and spy on their friends’s friends. And since when did publicly posting private conversations for all the internet to read become a good idea? People don’t call each other anymore, they rely on texting and myspace to become substitutes for normal human interraction. This is a big why everyone has become as vapid and shallow as Paris Hilton.

Why should I care whether you join a social networking site?

I love your honesty and couldn’t agree with you more. I take pride in knowing I’m not a “follower”.

Power to those who like to do their “social networking” over a beer and a burger.

Nice job, Bing. It’s just not always the right thing to do to ‘go with the flow’. What if you don’t want everyone to know who you are, what you do, and your view on the latest Britney fiasco. It seems to me there’s something wrong with the basic premise…

I’m also not on MySpace or any of the others like UTube. Where you have concentrations of people, you have hackers and people looking for “information” they shouldn’t have. The likelyhood of success in high concentrations makes a prime target. I’d rather NOT even accidentally release info to anyone or have someone I released info to release that to someone else. Thanks but all those social sites can grow on their own without my help.

Never got what the social network sites were about either, and have also failed to see what part of my existence they would improve. Isn’t it more smart to just set up your own website and do all the stuff you want there if you want to keep it, than on somebody elses, who is just going to monetize your efforts anyways? But oh well, i’m a cynic and outdated on the internet anyways. Great post, thanks for the read.

I’ve never bothered to visit or use MySpace, unlike many of my peers. I’m 36, have a life, and don’t care to spread my personal data online either. I say: Good for you Bing!

Unfortunately in Chicago your socal networking establishment cannot have special pricing, ever. There is a happy hour ban! Believe me I did most of my networking at a place called the Matchbox – got a great job that I was at for 5 years, found many web clients for side projects and made friends for life. MySpace is for kids, I enjoy the linkedin.com and facebook.com experience a bit better – just to keep myself listed and reachable by old friends. You can spend hours on that stuff…. I say list yourself and let it rest. peace.

Ditto! I couldn’t have said it better myself, so I won’t.

Bing: I am like-minded. The true power in the information age, is keeping your information private. It’s the information that online marketing companies HAVE that makes them powerful…and it’s the information they do NOT HAVE that makes them weaker…Let’s be selective about who we give that information to…and how we let them capture it. MySpace is like some weird, exhibitionist orgy of people who need to expose themselves. Never been a fan of that site.

He does, however, have a facebook account because it’s not owned by Rupert Murdoch

I couldnt agree more…I am the only one of 100 friends that is not on it…I have a life and dont need the world checking up on me either…myspace is for guys who dont have guts to talk to girls in real life…good luck wimps

I’m such a non-conformist, I’m not going to conform to you and I will join myspace…

Be true to yourself(not that I have to tell you that). I had a Myspace account but deleted it because I found I didn’t really have the time for it. Sure, I’d sign on here and there to check out the message boards of my favorite band but, not the contant steady emailing back-and-forth thing. I met some people on there with whom I went to a couple shows, great. However, when I deleted my account they went psycho on me, “have a good life coward, actually it was “get an ‘explative’ life”. I can’t handle that type of drama over people I met on the computer. Not to mention, these people were all well over 30 and acting like children.

I suppose it can be entertaining but if one does not have the time nor the desire, why bother?

Thanks Bing! I agree. Say goodbye to the lemmings.

My thoughts exactly! I have no need for InMyFaceLinkedBookSpace.

Virtual Social Networking makes people into social invalids, who cannot communicate with real people in real time. It reinforces insecure people’s insecurity and as a byproduct provides a harvest of victims to pedophiles. Guess what, insecure teenagers is EXACTLY what the predators are looking for.

I’m all for electronic communication with people you know, that’s great. But “expressing” oneself into the air is bogus. You first have to have something valid to say. Being a teenager is not valid enough by itself. Everybody is (or once was) a teenager. Write a book! Write a song! Write a column.

Eh, whatever, I get a feeling this comment will get the same treatment as Bing

You are not missing anything. I had one and canceled it, because I was inundated with porn (friends requests) by cam girls. Its was more of a hassle.

What happened to making a real website for yourself and oh there’s EMAIL.

What are the specials and the cross streets for the place?

I’m with you on this. I have never been a follower.

I agree with you entirely. Just because everyone else is doing it, does not a necessity make.

Are you sure this isn’t actually why?

http://www.forbes.com/technology/2007/07/20/facebook-myspace-internet-tech-cz_ccm_0723class.html

I completely agree Bing. However, I’ve found some social networking to be good at helping me reconnect with folks. If it weren’t for my (limited) online social networking I wouldn’t have just reconnected after 20 yrs with my high school buddy in California or caught up with my cousins in Toronto & Scotland. Everything in moderation.

You are right… analog beer is much more refreshing than digital beer.

Hear Hear!!!!! “Clink” (That was me raising a toast to that. Then lighting up a cigar.) I do not think I could agree more. Don’t let them get to you. They can’t see for the back of the guys head in front of them as they are all corralled through life.

Everyone values different things.
You don’t value myspace for the various reasons you give.
Good for you.
I do value it for different reasons then you gave (a place to share pictures and updates of my family without having to email them, etc).
I hope that if you ever got to the point where you saw the value of joining myspace, that you would do it, even though you would be perceived as “one of the sheep.”
I can’t stand the people who don’t do things for the sole reason that everyone else is doing it.
By that logic, stop driving cars.

100% agree

Well, it’s simply a useful invention. There *is* such a thing as technological evolution, and I believe that social networking PLATFORMS are one of them. Remember all those folks who refused to use cellphones back in 1995? Look at them now. See where I’m going with this?

The ‘web social network’ is so boring compared to the ‘real world social network’.

I not only agree with your sentiments about why not to join myspace (and facebook, mind you) with regards to marketing, but these sites also give people a way to cry out “INTERNET STALK ME.” However, I wouldn’t refuse things JUST because they’re mainstream — I just do what I want, when I want to do it. If I feel like a Chai Latte, I’ll have one. If I feel like watching a t.v. show or seeing a movie, I’ll watch it.

Social networking sites, and everyones desire for you to join in on them, is the next peer pressured drug. Most of the content is garbage, and other than keeping up with distant friends, not sure why people dont pick up the phone and call one another…

Thanks for that. There is a tinge of desperation in all this enetworking stuff, isn’t there? Kids, go play outside.

You may have a good point, but to the rest of cyberworld, and not matter how many times you cut it, you’re still a loser

I totally agree with you, Bing, there are too many FOLLOWERS and so few LEADERS. Any body you needs marketing, needs help.

What the heck is social networker? Sounds like a different name for a lounge lizard or a wiring diagram at a federal agency. I wouldn’t even know where to begin.

Cheers!

Avoiding things for the sake of bucking trends doesn’t make someone “not a sheep”. It takes a little more thought and education than that. I’m amazed people actually care enough about MySpace to actually pressure to someone else to join. Get a life.

“where they could talk to each other in a virtually mercantile-free zone.”

Sad that this has become the past tense.

I am also surprised by the amount of hostility directed at you for your desire to remain “off the radar” of social networking sites. I am a 25-year-old female, so by all assumptions I should have a MySpace page that I spen an inordinate amount of time creating and perfecting to present the exact persona that I want the online world to see. However, I do not. I have never even been on My Space, and have no plans to visit in the near future. My reasons are not so grandiose as not conforming to social mores, rather I spend all of my time at work and at meetings networking, and I cannot stomach the idea of also doing this in my off hours. I currently work as an analyst at a Fortune 500 company (which shall also not be named), and I think I put in a sufficient amount of social networking during the 55 hours a week I am there.

I actually applaud your decision to stay off the site. With all the stories I have heard recently of participants of social networking sites getting into trouble for their posts (i.e. Miss New Jersey for photos posted in Facebook), I would hesitate to join any of these online social groups. You can never be sure who is looking.

I completely agree with you. I refuse to get on myspace.

Good for you.. what drives me crazy is when people wear the same, eat the same, drink the same …… let me stop there isn’t that like not having a personality? think about it.. Get off the damn computer and get outside!!!

“You laught at ME because I am different; that is fine. Inside, I laugh at YOU because you are all the same.”

Agree Bing!

That’s funny. I’m not on MySpace because I was at a friend’s house and saw their 13 year old daughter on there sending comments to her “friends”. I felt the whole thing was kinda creepy.

You are so right! Majority of the people are either too lazy or stupid to think for themselves that’s why the have to follow the crowd,just like the sheeps do.

I think you should also mention that what you put on there is likely to be used against your professionalism by your coworkers when they search you out. All you want to do is connect with your friends and be yourself, but when others look you up, they have a limited view of who you are and that can destroy your credibility.

More power to you! I don’t think that MySpace would be a proper market for your books.

I always thought that MySpace and other social networking sites are primarily youth oriented for teenie boppers and adolescents who have nothing better to do then post their drama on a daily basis. Adults generally don’t have the time to sit around chatting with people online. Just my take.

Bing, I don’t blame you for not wanting to join MySpace for whatever reasons. I think you got such strong responses because of YOUR strong words: “…anybody over 28 who belongs to MySpace is a hopeless loser…” You’re just asking for some defensiveness there! Of course someone’s going to call YOU a loser right after you called HIM a loser.

People use myspace so they do not have to directly interact with people, while claiming to be social. I’ll see you at happy hour.

Thanks, everybody, for your comments, and most particularly to Harold in the Bronx, who is the only person in this space who has ever expressed any interest in whether or not I am getting laid.

My space, my space, yeah that is right it is my space and I don’t need anyone to invade it. If I want to socialize with friends then I will call, email, or text them and meet up with them. It is just a glorified front for poser egos whoopie… oh yeah and did I forget to tell you… you’re a media marketing department’s dream come true. To be cool you need to have, to be hip you need to wear, to stay looking young you need to use… HEY HOW COME I’M BROKE? Ya sap

Well, I just read through your blog for the first time. It was linked directly from the CNN main page.

I do realize two things: You write rather well and you just happen to have a strong personality; it looks like you won’t fall to any type of ‘peer pressure’, and if you do do what everyone else is doing, it’s because you like it. God is with you. It’s better to be one black egg amongst thousands of white eggs.

You simply don’t join Myspace because you don’t like it.

….. And you really have six iPods? I’m in need of a music playing device…

Take care

Always,
Beto

I’m with you Bing. The las thing in the world I want to do in this day and age is put MORE stuff out there with my name attached. Social networking sites are for those adults desperate for attention and for teeniebobbers to share their dramas. I think these pages are gonna be like tattoos. Cool when your 20 but liable to be embarressing when your 40. Just as easy to get and hard to get rid of too.

Acually I think myspace is not bad at all and I don’t think its only for teenie boppers or adolescents. It is in fact a great way for people to communicate with old friends from school (like college). You can post pictures and just keep in touch and keep up to date on what they are up to. Me and my wife have excellent jobs and that does not mean we have nothing better to do. I think some of these people on hear should not judge people for using the site especially when they no nothing about it. I personally don’t use it but my wife does and she loves it. It is simply to me a way to stay up to date with close freinds and family.

Continues to chuckle at the young slackers who fail to recognize that the technology they are so haughty and proud about using to entertain themselves was invented by baby boomers and is being used by those same baby boomers to market to them and exploit their gimme mentalities. The oldsters they so smugly disdain as being computerphobes are our parents, not theirs. Even our parents (the greatest generation) laid much of the techonological and economic groundwork that made the current technology possible.

100% agree. Plus, myspacers assume that the universe is interested in an incessant update of their thoughts. I remember feeling like that…when I was in my teens early 20’s. now-just don’t have the time to inform the universe of all of my thoughts. Also, I know longer think that it matters to strangers.

No offense.

Well if you were to join you could have 1,375 friends! And like, you could chat about the party the other night, ‘k?

Sorry, myspace is for 12 year olds who can’t yet socialize in adult settings without adults around.

Those who say you can market yourself, should really take a look at how much time they really have to spend on myspace to get any kind of return. The flood of people thinking they’re going to get rich by networking and marketing on myspace are fooling themselves. How many of them are looking to be marketed to? Uh…yeah, none. So who’s buying?

All the “friends” are preaching to the choir.

Besides the typical myspace page has the look of a really bad web site circa 1992. Not a good way to put your best foot forward. It absolutely looks amateurish, at best.

Not only is it pathetic that anyone would take issue with whether or not you partake in that folly, but it equally pathetic that it is even an issue.

A 50 year old male acquaintence once gleefully told me about his MySpace page. I had no idea anyone over the age of 18 even had MySpace accounts.

The closest I come is being on LinkedIn which is by no means a social networking site.

Bing, you’re da man!

I’m a gen-X, techie guy.
I don’t have MySpace account.

Ohboy, I was on mySpace for about 5 days. I created an account, uploaded some pictures, added some friends, made a few comments, and then I started wondering exactly what I was supposed to be doing on there? I couldn’t figure out what the POINT of the whole thing was, so I gave up and removed myself from it. It was the same with second life. It was explained to me as a place where a person could do or be whatever they wanted, but it just kind of struck me as a giant virtual mall with crap that you could pay for but not actually DO anything with. Just another way to suck my hard earned money out of my pockets. So I’ve pretty much given up on social networking, until the almighty creators can figure out a way of keeping me interested.

To those of you scorning Bing; what right have you to tell me what I should or should not be doing. I guess that I am an outcast for being male but uninterested in sport. Ask youself this, why do you not dare to be different.

What you think is none of your business.

I only join online social networks to tease, harass, humiliate, and degrade other people. There is really no fun in making “friends” online. Making enemies and being an internet troll is much more exciting. I can make friends in real life. But making enemies in real life can lead to getting punched, kicked, stabbed, shot, or having hot coffee thrown in my face. By being an anonymous jerk on the computer, I can display every narcissistic, malevolent, violent, materialistic, shallow, perverted, ignorant, and mindless thought I have without feeling the repurcussions that I would in real life.

If you become an internet troll, you will find that these social networks are much more exciting for you.

OK,
I don’t want to use MySpace either,
but I realise that the internet is
sort of a social parade for one’e achievements.
I just build web pages that con-
sist of photos & commentary & send
friends & students e-mails with the
link.
It doesn’t matter what you put
out there: e-mail, chat, blogs. It’s
completely public, and it will probablely live linger than you do.
It could probably come back to haunt you even beyond the grave, and your heirs
would suffer.

All these comments reminded me of the attention that asmallworld.net was getting for a while and still is a little bit.

I suppose that’s all together another subject?

Ha! It will get you, just wait. Nice try though.

I think that when someone from another state can create a my space account using my email the space isn’t very good.

Totally agree. I have actually given up some things I like because they have gotten “too popular”. Maybe I’m extreme the other way, but I hate to do what everybody else is doing.

I don’t see why anyone would want to have a myspace any more. It’s boring as hell and facebook is just retarded. WOULD YOU LIKE TO POKE ME? or some shit like that.

I like you even more now!

“Is that why social networks were created? To market more people more effective?”

Uh yeah, most people forget that myspace in its earliest inception was intended for indie bands to promote themselves. Now its just for attention whores.

Okay Scarlett, as God as your witness, you won’t go there.
But what about your childhood friend, the one that moved away in second grade? Remember you both laughed till milk came out your noses when you realized you had taken each others briefcases home by mistake? Bingo! He’s on myspace. Look him up, see where he is now. You know you wanna.
Maybe it won’t be today but it will happen perhaps with your wife or closest colleague, and then, yup, you’re on. Yes Bing, “one day, or another, it’s gonna find ya, it’s gonna getcha getcha getcha getcha”

There are people who measure their value in the number of people they know, and those who measure their value in the quality of the people they know.

Social networks seem to be for the former, and not the latter.

The best line I ever heard was that Second Life was for people who weren’t successful in their First.

Bing, you are my hero.

I’ve been in on the technology revolution since Harvard Graphics as well (nice pull), but technology is supposed to set you free, not tether you all the more. We keep taking perfectly good asynchronous communications systems and rev’ing them up until their synchronous. Then we get all wore out keeping up with them until we invent a new way to slow back down.

Letters –> Telegraph –> Secretaries
Telephones –> CellPhones –> Voicemail
email –> IM –> Not charging your batteries

Some people are more comfortable with confinement, it saves them the trouble of defining their own boundaries.

Follow your bliss.

You go, Bing!

I’m on LinkedIn and it’s been somewhat helpful in helping find vendors, etc.

I tried facebook because our local marketing assoc. thought we’d try it out. After a few days, my friend’s college kid linked to me. Her picture showed her partying and she was wearing a pretty revealing top. I closed the account immediately.

There’s a difference between using a source tool (LinkedIn) versus a social network — for work-related stuff.

Hmm, is this a case of My Space Autism?

WAY TO GO !

Who needs MySpace when you’ve got the BingBlog?

WELL SAID! BING, WHAT YOU JUST WROTE IS ONE OF THE MOST SENSIBLE THINGS I HAVE READ ALL MONTH. SEEMS LIKE THE WHOLE WORLD (ESPECIALLY THE US) IS JUST BECOMING BI-PRODUCTS OF MARKETING. NO ONE HAS A MIND OF THEIR OWN ANYMORE.

You know what? I think there’s a nerve here that’s throbbing — the special place inside a whole bunch of people that’s getting tired of having everything they do targeted, branded and turned to somebody else’s benefit. Citizens of the global multi-platform demographic unite! You have nothing to lose but your credit card debt!

Stan

What is your Blog, if not a “friggin’ social network?”

I am glad someone mentioned this, and to find that everyone has Not jumped on the Bandwagon. The whole idea of posting so much personal information on the internet, for anyone in the world to browse through, really needs some second thought. And then everyday we have to become more vigilant about online security and identity theft? ? ?

Nice Blog

i said i would never join myspace….then i did to keep in touch with friend moving out of town….then i was addicted..i wanted my page to be cute etc…now i just log in to check my messages…see if anything is happenin for the weekend..or simply to keep in touch with out of town friends…
its owned by fox people..of course its marketing and big business….still dosent mean that it isnt fun….
more power to ya for holding out..stay strong!1

Hi Bing–
Googled into the ____space (fill-in-the-blankspace) discussion and your blog by accident. After I read the comments, I came to a very troubling conclusion: there are people out there stupid enough to not understand that their right to privacy starts with them not putting the private parts of their lives in public view.

later

“I just don’t like going with the flow…”

not going with the flow for the sake of it is honestly just as foolish as simple “going with the flow.”

Suit yourself… as long as you happy, “bing”

My blog used to be my social site. I started on blogger in 2002 and soon made all my friends create blogs as well. We would all read what was happening and leave much wanted comments.
Now I find that myspace and facebook take up all my once beloved blogging time. Instead of blogging nearly once a day, I find myself getting around to it about once a month.
My blog was me. No ads. Just my life.
Now I’m overpowered by marketers and friends’ going-ons whether I care to know or not.
Can we just go back to the simple days? The days where people actually understood that you can’t put orange text on a pink background with tons of glittering pics?

I can’t be bothered to join MySpace. I have enough stuff that I already don’t have time to do, I had a website once, “ICantBeBothered.com”. But as you can imagine, it didn’t last for the obvious reason.

I am on LinkedIn, but even that is touch and go, where I mostly just accept invitations and return references…

Bing, could I score one of those IPods uselessly gathering dust? Neighborhood kids stole mine.

My biggest concern for gen Y (only a few years younger than me) and younger is their inability to speak eloquently or express themselves verbally whether in writing or face to face. It is a fundamental skill that in my opinion is more important than math, science, etc.

The younger generations claim to be more savvy and connected with society, but it’s all an illusion. I believe the more connected people become, the more disconnected they truly are.

Here here to this, I refuse to join myspace and am often criticized for it. Glad to hear someone who is thinking the same way.

If you ask me its just a bunch of stalkers online. Whats the difference between somebody in a tree with a benoculars peeping into somebodies house, then browsing through somebodies photos on myspace. Why are these people asking to be my friends when I havent spoken to these people in 10 yrs or more. Whatever happen to cell phones? Or does that take too long, It must be too personal. Im with the person who said the more “connected” we become the less personal and less connected you truely are.

I think the things exploded into life when young people called out for a digital space where their every thought, movement and taste would not be exploited by the big boomer sales machine, where they could talk to each other in a virtually mercantile-free zone. Now here come all the boomers to ruin it all.

You’re exactly right and for that reason I have deleted my MySpace page. I am beyond fed up with all the club promoters and horrible “targeted” ads. Actually, I just read an article about overloading people with advertising in every possible medium on Fast Company.

Hi Bing, I enjoy your columns!

About MySpace and Web 2.0 social networking, as you say, it’s your choice. From my perspective, Web 2.0 social networking does bring a somewhat more personal experience to keeping in touch with an increasingly far-flung network of friends, colleagues, and other contacts. Certainly more personal than E-Mail and cheaper than long-distance phone calls (yes, I know I can use Skype, but I choose not to).

You do bring up an excellent point about these environments having been mercantile-free (although that’s disappearing as well).

To each their own. I’m certainly not going to beg you, or anyone else, to join MySpace or whatever other platform. But if you ever change your mind, more power to you!

Amen, once we let the Big bad Marketing machine inside our homes, bedrooms, offices and our heads the game is over. There is no more individuality just numbers the ones that matter to the Corporate mavens who no longer need a crystal ball to predict the future, they only need to log onto to your space.

You bring up a good point.. Another point I’d like to make is that I ( a young person) and a lot of other people I know have recently deleted our myspaces… mostly because it hasn’t really done much for our social networking.. the people that we were good friends b4 myspace we’re still good friends with, the ones that “found” us on there from high school or wherever else said hi once and never really talked to us again.. that was about it.. nothing profound… along with the fact that they got to be vouyeurs into our lives..and on top of that myspace caused a lot of drama between a guy i was seeing and I .. a lot of trust issues whenever comments were made with the sexes.. I deleted mine about a week ago and I don’t miss it.. I noticed a lot of people would check out my page but not write me a message, so that leads me to believe.. its good for people who like to spy on other people in there free time, lol.. anyway.. thats my two cents.

Hi Bing. I got turned on to your site from a link that was on Fortune and got interested in all of the reading. Most everyone who has blogged you has posed an opinion…just opinions. Here are some facts for all to think about. I am a regular Myspace fan. I originally had set up an account to check on my children. I got addicted to it. I did not want all of my personal info being shared through the world either. Fact be known that Myspace has settings for the privacy of their users. Only friends of the users may view the profile. All it takes is a little playing around with it to see your many options. Email is no different or insecure than the email addresses through yahoo, or hotmail, etc. one of my children that I gave up for adoption has kept in contact with me over Myspace quite regularly since we live so far apart. I can look at her pics, see her lifestyle, and watch her slide shows.I have my profile set to private and only my kids and close friends (whom I choose) can view my stuff. I have a setting that blocks solicitors and everyone under 18 from contacting me. As I present these facts to you, my opinion about Myspace doesn’t matter here. I am a professional business woman, and college student and have had enough experience with spammers, hackers, nosy people, that I just want to say that there are things people can do to save themselves the crudd that goes on on Myspace if they really wanted to and these bloggers should really check out the facts before posting to millions of people who will read your blogs about how unprivate Myspace is. It is only as unprivate as they make it. I respect everyone’s opinion but when others judge things without looking into the facts, that makes them, well…they don’t look very good on here. It was actually nice reading your blog and seeing the thoughts of others.

Hi Bing,
I completely agree with your comments and your personal decision to stay off networking sites. The fact that personal information on these sites is used and manipulated in any way without the consent of the owner (who by joining seemingly waives off that right anyhow) is enough to keep most people away. What I find interesting rather, is the fact that you choose to document and make public your decision. Isn’t that what social networking is all about, documenting individual preferences in seeking to affirm to ourselves and others how independent and ‘not like everyone else’ we are.
So, I hate to burst your bubble buddy but you really are just like everyone else- everyone else here meaning all the ‘independent’, ‘individual’ people who don’t watch TV shows or drink chais or jump off a cliff just because everyone else is doing it.
Have a good day.

-Joe

My significant other, an indie recordist artist, introduced me to the horror called Myspace. It is, to my mind, an example of the worst of human behavior. Fourteen-year-old girls send him nude pictures – where are the parents? What is Myspace doing about this? Married women make him offers to “hook up” when he passes through town – where are their husbands? And of course, as the girlfriend who also had a Myspace profile, I was privvy to a host of female stalkers, psycho-fans, and assorted mental deviants. Myspace started as a groupie site, and unfortunately, it continues to draw the same or similar type of clientele. With that said, other networking sites, e.g., Facebook and tbd.com, seem to attract a relatively more educated and mentally balanced set of people.

I agree with you fully.

Kudos to you my friend I don’t know if. I should welcome to my club or you should welcome to your’s, but better I just live it at this point. I don’t even like the word club. I fly solo and I love it!

Look at what this new technology as put in our hands and we fell for it like inocent doves, facebook put on the map our new president that it is not much of anything new. Obama is to the country what Bloomberg is to New York finishing the work that their predecesors begun, Giulani and George W., Stripe us all little by little of all our rights and humanity, what a mistake we had made, but this one will last for generations to come thank you FACEBOOK it took a single young Telavivian to do what millons culd do not. Guillermo