Alternatives to Facebook

With the privacy concerns and bad press that Facebook has been receiving lately, a number of people are considering jumping ship. They dislike the way Facebook does things and desire something different...but what? Truth be told, Facebook is somewhat unique in that it's a one-stop-shop for all the services it offers. Any alternatives will inevitably be a list of other services instead of one website. That may actually be a good thing when it comes to data preservation...not storing all your eggs in one basket.

This post is for all of you who want to leave (or severely reduce their use of) Facebook. All those who want somewhere else to go but don't know where to start.

What is a status update?

With all the press about Facebook lately, including my own posts, I thought it would be interesting to explore just what a status update is and how it became so popular. The popularity of the status update is what allowed Twitter to become as big as it is, being a service that does nothing but status updates. This is also one of the most popular uses of Facebook.

The definition of a status update means something different to everyone, but the idea is the same: A short, text-based entry telling your friends something you deem worthwhile. Some people use it to share inspirational quotes, some use it to describe their daily actions, and some use it to share links and pictures.

How to: Quit Facebook and keep your stuff

So all the recent privacy concerns convinced you, eh? You've weighed the pros and cons, you've read my blog posts on the subject, and you're ready to dump your account. If you're still on the fence, there's always the deactivate feature, but this merely logs you out and puts your account in "suspended animation" while you're away. As soon as you log back in, it's as if you never left.

The other option is to completely delete your account. This will purge all of your information from Facebook's servers and ensure you never have to worry about their privacy settings again. Of course, the mere thought of deleting a Facebook account may raise your blood pressure, especially when you start thinking about all of the information that will be lost. Your photos, notes, contact details, etc...all gone forever.

This can be reason enough for many people to keep their account. They may want to delete it, but the thought of losing all that stuff prevents them from doing so. Luckily, there are lots of options for saving your personal data, just none that are officially supported by Facebook. Let's get started...

Facebook privacy UPDATE

A few weeks ago, I wrote a post detailing how to set all of the various Facebook privacy settings. It was a long post, but I think it covered everything and I got some good feedback about it. However, as with all things in the technology world, things changed quickly and Facebook now has updated their settings and changed some things that everyone needs to be aware of.

Most notably is the addition of a Like button that website owners can place on their pages. This button is already visible on hundreds of thousands of websites (including this one) and will only become more popular. As a website owner myself, the appeal of the Like button is irresistible. For every person that clicks Like, a link to my page gets posted for all of their Facebook friends to see. The potential for exposure is massive.