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Is anyone else sick of "FOLLOW ME ON..."

In the good old days, the Internet was free and easy but now there are a whole bunch of viral behemoths eager to take our money by providing viral services (ya de ya).

I have a hate-despise relationship with Tw*tter. I detest it - and that's largely because I think many of us and the services we rely on are being hooked on the meme. ("Follow me" is an imperative, not a request). I don't want to follow ANYONE, thank you very much and the fact that we can't go anywhere now without being told to FOLLOW US is really starting to grind my gears.

Email and web are open systems; no one person controls them and it's this that made the Internet great, but now American corporations with bottomless pockets are funding these loss-making startups under the same business plan as Microsoft are so fond of: obliterate the competition until nothing else remains.

As a developer I would love to see an open system to replace Twitter that worked on a diffuse network of computers but this is a little outside of my area of expertise. It certainly seems plausible - Gnutella does something simple for file sharing, legal or otherwise. After all, Twitter is (in essence) an modified email which operates as a central clearing house for all requests.

Maybe it's just me but it seems that we're on the cusp of imploding under the weight of this meme or maybe I'm too old... anyone like to share a few thoughts?

Tags: meme, twitter, viral

0 members like this

Replies to This Discussion

Permalink Reply by Meddlesome on May 18, 2011 at 11:05am

I am not on facebook

I am not on twitter

I am not on myspace

I am not on skype

I am not online at all times

I am missing out on nothing :)

I am on other places, specialised places, places that are suitable for taking part of my time, not invading all of it.

Permalink Reply by Meddlesome on May 18, 2011 at 12:28pm

This like?

Permalink Reply by ɟǝןıx dǝʇɹɐɹ on May 18, 2011 at 11:31am

I simply ignore the requests on twitter and facebook. I don't even know how twitter works but i heard that twitter was important for the Iranian revolution; that was two years ago. Probably we are a little bit backward. What do you do with twitter? It is good for what?

Permalink Reply by Gecko, Seth...brother of Richie! on May 18, 2011 at 12:33pm

Twitter is major source of immediate information. It has been very important to the Arab Spring.

Permalink Reply by ɟǝןıx dǝʇɹɐɹ on May 18, 2011 at 12:49pm

Thanks brother :)

Permalink Reply by rounder421 on June 4, 2011 at 1:03am

I recently started using twitter. I don't tweet (although I have managed to get 6 followers, why I don't know.) I use it as a headline feed for things I'm interested in. I follow a few newsies (Cooper, Maddow, and KO) I follow Nasa, Seti, several science blogs and groups, the Daily Show-Colbert report, and several heathen bloggers. I also follow a few comedians, my favorite at the moment being Jim Gaffigan. His humor is perfect for micro blogs.

I understand the hate though, facebook, I use to keep in touch with people I know only. The whole app crap i avoid like the plague, especially those stupid games everyone is addicted to. However I do use it to sign up for other sites that can log me in via FB. Makes life a little easier.

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