MySpaced Out

My MySpace page is no more.

After four years on MySpace, I terminated my account. My decision to do so was swift; my experience in terminating it was less so. I made the decision to end it when MySpace changed its format in a pathetic attempt to make it look more like Facebook. I went on MySpace this past Friday morning to post a music video on my page - I posted a different one every Friday - and that's when I found it had been changed. I went ahead and tried to post a video, but the new features - many of which I didn't understand - were cumbersome, the features I'd been using had become very user-unfriendly, and the screen itself was too big to fit on my monitor. I had to zoom out to 75 percent to even see the log-out button (which I only figured out after having switched off my computer twice and rebooted). Also, every time you place your mouse over the upper left hand corner, strange graphics - a mounted moose head, an octopus's arm - appear out of nowhere. What's up with that? Furthermore - and this was the clincher - my profile page looked like a Facebook wall. It no longer resembled a standard Web page.

Because this was all far more trouble than it was worth, I went to my account settings - once I figured out how - and moved to terminate my account. And that's when the fun began.

The "delete account" button was not working. MySpace let its customers know that, if they wanted to quit the service, they had to go through an eleven-step procedure involving writing the words "REMOVE PROFILE" on your page and informing customer support of your decision. During the weekend, I checked to see my page had been deleted. It hadn't. I went on to MySpace to see if the "delete account" button was working at last. It wasn't. I got to thinking the I'd be on MySpace for life, if they so decided.

Finally, my MySpace page was taken down yesterday. That's it - it's over. And although I regretted leaving, I had no patience for a social networking site that changed and/or got rid of everything I liked about it.

It's no big loss. I only had 74 friends on MySpace, while I had thrice - that's three times - as many on Facebook. Many of my MySpace friends were also friends on Facebook, and those who weren't were people I never really knew and had never even heard of before they asked to be friends with me. So terminating my MySpace page meant doing something I rarely do - cutting cords irrevocably and never looking back. I just wish MySpace had made it easier to do.

So what of my Music Video Of the Week segment, you say? I'm glad you asked. Blogger.com now has a new feature that allows its customers to add separate pages, as you already know, and I am seriously considering reviving my Music Video Of the Week feature on such a page on this blog. But because I might be getting a new PC - mine is eight years old - and because I'd feel compelled to post Christmas music videos in December when good Christmas music videos can be hard to find, I'll likely wait and bring back the feature after the first of the year.

So stay tuned.

And if you plan to join or stick with MySpace, good luck. You're going to need it.

Saving Facebook

Can it be done?

Facebook, the social networking Internet site everyone loves, is losing some of the love that made it a success thanks to its new privacy policies. When Facebook went public in 200, default privacy settings were established to keep private any personal information out of the hands of people who were not users' "friends." Now more people can see the information of any Facebook user, whether those people are registered friends of the user or not. Friends might see your name in a Facebook ad, and data from your profiel could end up on "partner sites" like Yelp, Microsoft, Pandora, or similar sites. Facebook executives decided on new privacy standards in a big meeting on Thursday (May 13), and even though Facebook founder Marc Zuckerberg says that the privacy of Facebook's users is a top priority, not everyone is convinced. People are fleeing Facebook like vampires from crosses.

This is not good for me, as I am a regular Facebook user and appreciate the ability to reach out to people that it's given me. I also met several people through Facebook that I would never have met elsewhere. I also use Facebook to promote my writing; chances are you're reading this because you followed the link I left on Facebook. I have no thought of leaving, but several of my friends might consider doing so. That wouldn't be cool. Understandable, yes. Cool, no.

So, if you want to stay on Facebook and keep your private information private, rather tha nlet it fall into the hands of advertisers and other Internet services, here's what to do:

On the upper right-hand corner of your screen, click Account\>Privacy Settings\>Personal Information and Posts. Make sure you adjust your privacy settings next to all nine categories on the page. Then click Back to Privacy\> Contact Information. Make sure you adjust your privacy settings next to all eight categories on the page.

To ensure that friends don't see your name when they view Facebook ads, go to the upper right-hand corner of your screen. Click Account\>Account Settings\>Facebook ads. Select " No one" beside the section that reads "Allow ads on platform pages to show my information to & Show my social actions in Facebook ads to."

Finally, to make sure that you're not enrolled in a program that gives Web sites such as Microsoft, Yelp, and Pandora (I don't even know what Yelp and Pandora are!) access to your information, go to the upper right-hand corner of your screen. Click "Edit Setting" beside Instant Personalization Pilot Program. Then, uncheck the box at the bottom of the screen.

If you have any questions, find me on Facebook. I'll be there. :-)

Up With Facebook!

It's official - Facebook is more important in my life than MySpace!

Two of my friend requests on Facebook got honored today, giving me 71 Facebook friends to 69 MySpace friends. True, some of my Facebook friends and some of my MySpace friends are the same people, so there's some overlap, but that's not the issue. The point here is that I've been on MySpace for two-and-half years and I've been on Facebook for seven months, and until yesterday it only took me seven months to get as many friends on Facebook as I'd accumulated on MySpace in a quarter of a decade. As of today, Facebook stands even taller on my PC.

Not only am I spending a lot more time on Facebook, I'm spending a lot less time on MySpace. Right now I only go on it to change my MySpace Music Video Of the Week, and it's then that I check for updates. There's no need to check for updates in between; there are so damn few of them. Many of my MySpace "friends" are musical acts I don't know personally anyway.

I'll still keep my MySpace page, because it serves as my public Web site - I keep my Facebook page private - and I have friends on it that aren't on MySpace that I wish to keep in touch with. (Go to my MySpace page - the link is to the right on this blog - and you'll see only my top twelve friends, the ones I actually know and have met in real life.) But when it comes to connecting with people I consider an important part of my life . . . Facebook rocks my world, baby!