Facebook forges further forward with new mechanisms to attract revenue.  The IPO, a bungled affair, has not stopped people giving up on it…except me that is.  I left Facebook for several reasons. The principal being that discretion is not the better part of valor for most people.  Indiscretion is not calculated on Facebook, it is ignored and that has consequences in many people’s lives.   So I thought it better to be ‘out of the limelight’ so no more indiscretion by me or my clan.  Or perhaps in a sensitive moment I over-reacted as there are probably little or no consequences at all (at my level) considering that most Facebook ‘blah blah’ is now lost in the myriad of noise that has beset Social Media.  As in all this Social Media push the likes of Blogs, Twitter, Bebo, MySpace, et al  saw early heady days that allowed you to make your name, become a ‘Perez’ or have a million followers if you had something niche to ‘loud-hailer’ into the ether.  Today we are swamped.

The second reason I left Facebook was that it became an interference in my life.  Everybody does it, everyone talks about it, TV ads drive you to it and for what?  So you can look at other people telling you how wonderful their lives are, their merchandise is,  or how famous their news channel is.  Last but not least the final reason was that I had become disappointed with what it offers up in regard to Businesses.  It is really just a Corporate WebPage in another format.  It is a Company Forum which is not always a bright idea!  The incident that broke the camel’s back was that of the technical issue with a Print Server device from a Company (who shall remain nameless) after obtaining no joy from their technical support site.   I thought eureka go to their Facebook page and see how I can interact with them and other ‘FANS OF PRINT SERVERS’ in order to solve the problem.  Lo and Behold the whole experience was one of total disappointment.  A ‘paid’ Social Media Monitor from Company X saw my unhappy post and replied to me asking me if I had been to yes … technical support.  They did not respond or assit in rectifying the issue.  Individualism is ‘ONE WAY’ in the land of Facebook.  When I offered to send them the useless device (I even offered to send it back at no cost with no request for refund) they did not answer.  Avoidance of the issue was the name of the game.  As it wast their Facebook page was full of complaints surrounding the said device.

In such circumstances you may say that I should have done my research via the medium I write about, beforehand?  Yes perhaps I should have done my research, however on a busy Saturday in a French equivalent of ‘Dixons’ I did not have time;  the purchase was made from the blurb on the box in an ‘in-store’ comparison moment.

So today I don’t LIKE Facebook, I don’t miss Facebook and when I get to a website that asks me to log-in using my Facebook account that moment in time shows me how narrow-minded many people have become.  What if you don’t have a Facebook account?  WHAT! YOU DON’T HAVE A FACEBOOK ACCOUNT?????

Then today, I read that Facebook has around 54 Million fake profiles, that LIKES are being generated from Egypt and the Philippines from fake accounts.  Boosting the myth that Facebook is the place to hit most people, increase your Brand Value and make you more money.  Millions of dollars spent by Companies on a medium that appears to be ‘valuable’.  I do question the thought pattern of some marketeers in some Companies though when it comes to Advertising.  Why on earth would anyone follow ‘LEMSIP’ or anything as remotely banal as a basic over the counter medicine Facebook page?  You have to be pretty ill yourself to be interested in the life of LEMSIP n’est ce pas?