Well, I’ve been talking about it for some time and I finally deleted my MySpace account today. It was an interesting process because I brought up my “friends” list (which is decidedly smaller than it was 1 – 2 years ago thanks to everyone switching to Facebook) to see if I was already linked up with that person on Facebook. First of all, I was friends with all but 8 or 9 people on both networks. That’s 8 or 9 out of near 200 friends (and once near 400).
Second, I absolutely hate the way that MySpace pages can be overly manipulated. I was friends with some people who chose to completely screw up their MySpace pages to the point where you’d need a 50″ screen on an ultra high resolution just to see the entire page at once. Completely ridiculous. That’s one of the features that I like about Facebook – it doesn’t allow you to break their basic format (and I hope they never move in that direction).
As for the cancellation process on MySpace, I found it to be overly cumbersome. You have to choose to “cancel” your account two or three times and then when you get the e-mail confirmation, you have to click on a link and confirm the cancellation again. I’m sure the News Corp lawyers that run the legal end of MySpace have some reason for that process, but it’s a bit ridiculous. Just let people cancel and move on already.
So now that I’m off of MySpace and LinkedIn, I think that I’m only on Facebook. I have to go and check whether or not I have any outstanding online profiles at Yahoo, but I should be good at this point. I’m considering whether or not to get rid of the Google photo album, too. There is only a limited amount of space available and it’s a little annoying to upload pictures to both Facebook and Google. I guess I’ll rest on that one a little bit longer, too.
In the last year I’ve merged both of my blogs into the one that you’re reading now and deleted unnecessary profiles at MySpace, LinkedIn, and Plaxo. Frankly, after a while it just gets to be too much. I think that this is the fate that Twitter has ahead of it. By the way, has anyone noticed how Twitter is essentially the new AIM for a younger generation? Just an observation.
No more MySpace!
At this point, MySpace is completely useless to me, though I still am yet to delete it, more so because of that “just in case” feeling I have on someday, possibly wishing I had it for some particular reason.
Like you, I hate how people clutter it up with different looks, colors and how it is often impossible to view some profiles. I also hate how MySpace has no rules regarding names, because almost half the people on there are under a foreign name to me, or identify themselves by a phrase or something. If I were to take a look at a list of my MySpace friends just by the name they use, I would not be able to identify more than half of them probably.
The MySpace comments where people complain is also useless… especially those where people state that if you don’t reply, then you’re not a real good friend. Sadly, those same people have made their way on Facebook and use their status updates to moan everytime they have a sniffy nose, or that nobody loves them.
Twitter, I don’t understand what the point of it is… I have an account where I have embed the updates on my own blog’s navigation, but I don’t get much use of it. Aside from a few “random Twitter musings” when out and about, I don’t get what the point is nor do I understand why I would chose Twitter to contact someone when something like email is far more useful. Plaxo, Linkedin – all of which I have but never use – are completely useless.
Back in our day, all you needed was AIM and you know what, we were good to go.