Well, I finally got my first Facebook SPAM message.

Now, normally a person’s newsfeed gets rather cluttered up and becomes a sort of spam-feed really but after learning how to filter things out, it becomes much more manageable. For almost a year now, I’ve been following the progress of a game that has been advertised, The Secret War. It has the honour of being the first and only online MMORPG that actually will get me to pay for it. There are other games that I never bothered because I never had the system that could handle it and really couldn’t afford it. This game has so many elements of things that I like (Lovecraft, Conspiracy, Myths) that I can’t ignore.

The company partnered up with Facebook to help promote the game in a kind of pre-release FB-style of game. It’s rather interesting but not overly engaging. Really, I think the point of it is to simply meet other people online and once the game is officially released, there will be some sort of connection. Maybe not, but that’s my feeling.

So, to that end, I started added a TON of people because in the game, if you want to affect more areas, you need more friends. Sure, you could be fine with only 50 or so FB friends but if you want to do more, you need to add friends. Ok, I’ll bite, let’s see where this goes. I started adding friends like MAD. I am up to 1100+ friends now :)

A couple of days ago I got a SPAM message. I was surprised but thought I’d have fun with it. Check it out:

I haven’t heard back from yet.  I’m disappointed.

So then I got this threat from Facebook about blocking my account!

“We received feedback that you sent friend requests to people you don’t know, which isn’t allowed on Facebook. Please only send friend requests to people you know, like classmates, family, friends and coworkers. Otherwise, you could be blocked from sending friend requests.”

Please note the emphasis I added.  You are NOT allowed to add people you don’t know.  So let’s go back to the game where if you want to have more agents you HAVE to add more people.  This essentially limits you to how effective you can be in the game if you follow the rules 100%.  This also means people with more friends are guaranteed to win at the game.  So much for fairness.

Facebook irks me.

http://www.news.com.au/breaking-news/facebook-spies-on-phone-users-text-messages-report-says/story-e6frfku0-1226282017490

I keep finding more and more reasons to not go back to Facebook.

In the fashion of the SOPA protest, I have decided not to use Facebook for one month.  I plan on using the time spent on Facebook to improve my learning of Korean.  I figure it is a better way to spend my time.

The interesting about this blog is that for the longest time, I always thought long, detailed blog posts were necessary to make this useful enough to read.  That will change.  I will do any daily updates, that normally went to my FB status, here.  No you won’t be seeing ‘I’m hungry’ two word posts here, but ones where I tell a little bit of a story type of deal.

No this also doesn’t mean I am supplanting Facebook with my blog.  I just don’t feel the need to browse other people’s status when learning Korean is significantly more important for me :)  Update here don’t need me to log in.  I can email them from my Galaxy Tab ;)

A G+ user (+Christina Trampolino) has commented about her apparent dilemma about using FB and how noisy it was, and then commented on how she used G+ and FB differently.  Having gone through much of what she describedf (the typical FB Wall noise), I added in my own experiences.

“+Christina Trapolino I went through a transformation almost a year ago. I quit Facebook when I moved to South Korea. I found zero use for it and like you, saw way too much noise. I had announced my move to another country 4 months in advance and 3 weeks before I left, a friend of mine asked me ‘where are you going?’. Proof to me that people allow the noise to fill their FB feed and not really pay attention to people that are closer to them than ‘FB friends’.

After I got to South Korea, I decided to setup a Remote Computer Support business for foreigners (lots of English teachers here who have laptops and desperately need help). The downside to that, they all communicate on FB. So I set up a new FB account with the sole purpose for keeping in touch with clients/potential clients.

I would seriously prefer Google+ but that mindset has not perculated down to the FB masses yet and so any ‘conversion rate’ to get people to even use it (let alone switch) is still pretty minor. The only people I know who are on both my FB friends list and G+ circles are a couple of computer-savvy people. Which has been noted that the early adopters of new technical things have always been us Geeks :) (Keep in mind that there was a huge typo in the Bible…”The Geek shall inherit the earth”).

So now I am in both worlds. Google plus is still my more techie-related info, FB for client-interaction and right now, Twitter for happenings around the world.

Once G+ become truly transparent to either of those others (as well as my WordPress blog), I will be glad to stick with one platform.”

Google + is still a better platform, mostly because FB has simply become noisy.

My reasons for leaving Facebook:

Facebook security issues:
- http://boingboing.net/2010/05/07/yet-another-privacy.html

- http://mashable.com/2010/10/18/facebook-apps-leak-user-info/ (You Farmville people want to be reading this one!!!!!)

This is just some minor shit. There is a file floating around with ‘personal information’. I’ve downloaded it, looked at it and was bored. It was just a list of names and counts of frequency of names. Pointless and useless to the majority of people. And regardless of how companies are not supposed to use personal information when hiring someone, they all do it. You’d almost be a fool not to when you have such powerful tools as ‘facebook search’. Then again, it’s a breach of privacy that happens all the time and they will never use it as an excuse but you know it’s the whole reason.

My time wasted and things I could have been doing:

• could be developing business(es)
• could have learned a whole new language and be fluent
• average 7hrs a month for a typical user
• http://blog.nielsen.com/nielsenwire/online_mobile/facebook-users-average-7-hrs-a-month-in-january-as-digital-universe-expands/

Facebook might be bought out by Apple….. http://apple.slashdot.org/story/10/10/19/2050211/The-Case-For-Apple-Buying-Facebook?from=twitter

Good or bad? Who knows, time will tell.

Seriously, Facebook as ZERO value to my life. There will probably be some stupid people who will take this to heart and find some convoluted way to take that statement personally. “I added you as a friend on facebook. You telling me I’m a waste of time???” If you honestly believe that, then yes….I am. That also means you are shallow and have no conception of friendship and are probably one of the people who asked for my new number despite having never, ever called me in your life.

Here is a ‘how to quit’ method:

http://www.wikihow.com/Quit-Facebook

Didn’t use this but could have and may be useful for others to follow

What is the point? Many people have said ‘it’s convenient to keep in touch with mass people’. Translation, you are not important enough for me to email you or check out your website even though I expect you to check out mine.

<shrug> Who knows really what it means. People here are ‘too busy’ and that’s not good enough for me. I’ll catch up with you ‘busy people’ once your ‘reasons for being busy’ are less or gone away. Then again, don’t expect me to not be busy too by then….

Now, if you’ve read this far, congrats. You are probably one of the 5 people who will. That means you win a prize! Here is all the ways you can contact me online.

Websites:

DragonDon.net – http://dragondon.net

I’ve owned this domain name for just over 7 years. If you didn’t know that, well then I am surprised you have read this far.

Email:

I’ve had the same email address (dragondon@…) for the same length of time. Free as well y’know.

This leads me to teach you about RSS. RSS is a simple way to get my information to you without you having to make such an extreme effort to visit my site once a month.

Easy steps:

1. Go here: http://email.about.com/od/rssreaderswin/tp/windows_free.htm
2. Download one of the programs & Install
3. Add http://dragondon.net/feed/ or just go to that link an use your favourite online reader…)
4. Done. Now I come to you.

Skype:

For those that still live under a rock, Skype is a FREE program that allows you to talk/chat/vid with others. They pretty much pioneered VOIP and have ventured into the telecom industry. Yes, that means you can make calls to landlines and cell phones. Look me up, Binaryguy01. Did I mention that was free?

Google Buzz:

Again, for those that have lived under a bigger rock, Google has a type of ‘twitter feed’ that updates as I post stuff. Free as well for those who have a Google Account.

Speaking of Twitter: @DragnDon (If you don’t get that, then Twitter is not for you…)

IRC:

Channel: dragondon.freenode.net

Yes it’s still around, the Internet’s oldest chat format

Phone:

Only a select few will get my new Hamilton phone number. (Wait, did he say Hamilton?) Yes I did and I got it for free too.

For those who want to know why I am leaving the Country to begin with.

Unsupportive Environment:

Canada simply doesn’t want to help anyone. Hell, they’ll PAY YOU TO STAY AT HOME. There something inherently wrong with a society that allows people to pay $250 a month to rent a 3-bedroom townhouse, get $2000 every 30 days, and expect nothing in return. Why the hell am I trying to bust my ass while also paying taxes for someone else NOT TO?? Blown out of proportion? Not in the slightest. I know people personally in this position.

Paranoid people/companies:

They don’t want to hire people who can think. It’s absolutely stunning this one little fact. So much that I simply refuse to accept such bullshit. No wonder I’m ‘unemployable’ because I actually know how to do things and go far and beyond any job requirements to get my work done. Yet there are those who watch YouTube videos all day long and still have their job. Yeah, fuck you Mr Corporation and cowardly manager.

Although really, it’s more selfishness and short-sightedness than paranoid. People over here care less about others than themselves. Sure our basic nautre is selfish on a purely survival basis, but the general feeling goes beyond that and that is a sad state of affairs.

So, there are all my reasons in a nutshell. Enjoy them and maybe we’ll still keep in contact, maybe we won’t. This will be the true test of friendship and family.

Don

(Oh yeah, if don’t bother replying on Facebook, I won’t bother reading it if you haven’t gotten that by now)