The (justifiable) hits just keep on coming. Two weeks ago I completely wiped my Google+ profile, as part of my Google purge, and then Google announces this yesterday: Project Strobe: Protecting your data, improving our third-party APIs, and sunsetting consumer Google+. What perfect timing! Yeah, so they’re finally killing off what’s been dead for years, can’t believe it took them this long. Mike Elgan, an excellent tech journalist, wrote two pieces today, Social networking is dead and Google is the new Yahoo which accurately and succinctly sum up what’s going on these days with social media, and just how clueless Google is about its data feeds… er, customers. Granted, Mike had spent countless hours in the past working in G+ and I remember back in the day he had touted it as the most awesomest social platform ever, so I’m sure this has put him in a dour state-of-mind. Love this quote:
In truth, social networking itself is dead or dying.
Now it’s clear why: When everyone gathers in a single place, that place becomes an irresistible opportunity for the company that owns the network to squeeze every drop of value from users by manipulating them with algorithms, stealing and monetizing their private data — and also an irresistible target for disinformation propagandists, trolls, bots, haters, spammers and jerks of every variety.
Social is dead.
The sooner people realize this, the better off we’ll all be. If we should keep anything (at least as it stands today, for the most part), Instagram is pretty nice. Because it’s really just pix and vids, and I never read comments. But I’m sure Facebook will trash it in the not too distant future. Ugh
Kinda funny though… what’s old might be new again (blogs/email/rss feeds…).