And we’re back — and regressed
OK, so I goofed up significantly in my upgrade of WordPress — and my backup was corrupted, to boot. So, sigh. I lost some posts. My own foolishness, and your benefit.
If you can read this, everything is likely working. If you don’t, please let me know. Yes, I’ve used that joke before.
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March 2nd, 2009 at 23h22
Site owner makes a post asking why anyone would use Facebook when they could do the work necessary to have their own website. His site immediately loses the ability to accept comments. Then it crashes for several days. Once restored, content is missing.
It’s like ten thousand spoons when all you need is a knife
It’s meeting the man of my dreams, and then meeting his beautiful wife
March 3rd, 2009 at 11h09
Whew! Glad to see you back. You had me a wee bit worried.
And well . . . Bob Mike pretty much took the words right out of my mouth.
I like coming here and will continue to do so, by the way. I also enjoy Facebook. It’s a quick way to see what’s going on with everyone at once, and a much easier way for me to find people than Google (I’ve tried – believe me. Maybe I just suck at it).
March 3rd, 2009 at 19h14
One of my pals just moved on over to Wordpress and had a nasty time, so maybe it’s not just you?
lol.
March 3rd, 2009 at 23h48
Mike, Amal –
Does the fact that this line of reasoning make absolutely zero sense to me say something more about you or me? It is indistinguishable for me from the argument “Credit cards will reimburse you for fraudulent charges, and will replace lost cards. With cash, if you lose it, you’re up shit creek. Therefore, you should always pay with credit and never pay cash.”
All the other advantages — cash is anonymous, cash is accepted more places, cash does not rely on the continuing existence of certain companies for value — are swept under the rug. Yes, I realize that this second argument spirals into “Therefore you should always pay with gold”, or “Therefore you should always barter with ammunition, canned goods, and gasoline.” Which I would totally agree with. WordPress is like cash: it’s a middle ground. If I wanted to go all libertarian, I’d write my own damn CMS.
Sorry, Amal, but if people I’ve lost touch with cannot Google for “Joshua McGee” and find me (go ahead and try it, both with and without quotation marks), I probably wouldn’t consider it worth reconnecting anyway.
March 3rd, 2009 at 23h53
By the way, my content was backed up. By Google. I just haven’t bothered re-posting it yet:
I am, it should be noted, far more convinced of the likelihood of Google’s continued existence than Facebook’s.
By the way, the two of you taken together do, in fact, make up 25% of my close friends.
March 4th, 2009 at 06h44
Hey again! Yes, I did find you from the Atheist Blogroll. My new hobby is going through those and seeing if any are worth looking at, and from there if any are worth commenting on…
lol. It’s pretty fun, actually! You see a lot of differences, and similarities, in all of the blogs.
March 4th, 2009 at 10h57
The thing is, Josh, I don’t think that you’re wrong about the virtues of having your own domain. Your original post asked if you were missing about the popular social networking sites, though, and I think that your answer (in part) comes from the low levels of involvement necessary to create a page for oneself on such a site. Your blog, while enjoyable, has gone down or lost its ability to accept comments more times than I can count on one hand, and those are just the times that I’ve encountered (I’m not here on a daily basis). I’ve never been unable to access Facebook (although I’ve heard of it happening from other people), and if I was unable to access it, there’s nothing that I need to do. It’s someone else’s problem.
The other thing, as I mentioned in an email to you, is definitely the social networking aspect. You mention that Amal and I make up 25% of your close friends, and that seems to be a number with which you’re comfortable. I’m substantially more of an extrovert. I have ten people (Emma, Chris, Rachel, James, Keith, Shanti, Dan, Art, Robi and Owen) that I spend a minimum of four hours with every week. Additionally, I have three friends that I make a point of seeing at least once a month, two friends with whom I talk on the phone every day and several handfuls of people that I fit in whenever I can. Oh, and four pen pals (snail mail variety). I love interaction, and the larger the group, the better. Facebook makes this a breeze.
All of this is sort of beside the point, however, as the internet is not a zero-sum game. It’s possible that this site will outlive Facebook, or that Google will outlive Facebook, but that really doesn’t matter. Joining Myspace won’t delete your site off the internet. I have a Myspace page, a Facebook page, a Livejournal and a gaming wiki. Each of them has their merits, but using any of them won’t prevent me from using the others.
Ultimately, it’s your call. I’m certainly not urging you to join a social networking site; there are plenty of reasons not to join one. I’m just answering your question as to why someone would consider doing so when they already have a site.
March 4th, 2009 at 16h19
I think I’ve decided from now on I’ll refrain from posting until I see that Bob Mike posts. It’ll save me a lot of work.
As you can see, I’m lazy. That’s why I’m on Facebook.
March 4th, 2009 at 16h36
All of this is sort of beside the point, however, as the internet is not a zero-sum game.
No, but the amount of time in a day is a fixed-sum game. The question is, how distributed do I want my online presence to be, given that each site requires nonzero time to maintain? I think they take nonzero time. I use last.fm because it takes absolutely no time to maintain — I just set SqueezeCenter to scrobble my listens. I’m on LinkedIn, but again, it’s fire-and-forget. I suppose I could set up static content on each of the social networking sites, each with a link to the presence to which I’ve decided to dedicate nearly 100% of my time — namely, mcgees.org.
Actually, though, I don’t even know whether an effective presence can be achieved with one expenditure of energy. Some sites expire your membership and content if you do not use the service for a certain amount of time. Traditionally, most sites did this. It may be that the new breed is different — but I haven’t considered it worthwhile to go in and research this.
March 5th, 2009 at 09h12
Again, it’s your call. You’re absolutely right that time is fixed. If you’ve got enough on your plate that maintaining your personal site while using Facebook would be too great a burden on your time, you have my congratulations. Not many people are that industrious.
March 10th, 2009 at 17h09
[...] so, fine, I joined Facebook, after I said I wouldn’t. It took 25 minutes, the bulk of it taken up by importing [...]
July 4th, 2009 at 22h02
Премного благодарен, что просветили, и, главное, как раз вовремя. Подумать только, пять лет уже в инете, но про это первый раз слышу.