OVERDUE Update: Recalculating My Facebook.

So yes, it's been a while since I've updated. I've actually been doing a lot of thinking about my interactions with the social web, and come to an important decision--I want to de-emphasize Facebook. How I got there is the subject of this post.

First off, I'm not going to be deleting my Facebook. That's strange, and anyone who tells you that you can actually delete your Facebook (like the previous link) is lying and is probably a spammer. Plus, I'll occasionally get a message or an update from someone I knew a while ago, and that's always cool. It's a more friendly way to keep in touch than e-mail. That's valuable to me.

But the time I spend on Facebook is not valuable or useful. Facebook is trying to be everything to everyone, and that's going to be annoying and frankly, I don't like it. I like have "niches" for my interactions.

I like that LinkedIn is a professional network and only a professional network. That serves them well. I like the ability to 'customize' my Twitter to be what I want it to be--which, as of now, is a news aggregator (thanks to the help of AllTop). I like those things--they are simple, clear, and are not trying to overreach the boundaries that they've established. I'm comfortable with those.

And that's precisely what I don't like about Facebook. I don't want Facebook to be the center of my internet-universe (I'll take Google for that). I think Facebook is way overvalued, some people saying it is worth up to $90 BILLION. I don't know if it has proven that, and while it certainly can be used for advertising in a direct and 'meaningful' way, that's just it--it's just advertising.

And I don't like to buy lots of things, nor do I have the means to buy lots of things. One of the things that I've ranted about when it comes to stock traders, for instance, is that they don't really add any real social value beyond just dollars (for taxes and for future investments). And while capital is important, how can we value that over original ideas, or someone producing something? (Though, this is changing--the example of 'social finance' being prime). Facebook is an advertiser's gold mine, but that doesn't mean I have to participate.

I don't want to be bombarded with consumerism every time I log on to see how my friends' overseas are doing. Am I a hypocrite for not leaving it altogether? I don't think so, because I only want to use it for what I want it for, not what Facebook wants me to do. And I'm not saying Facebook is evil (it's not--it's a company of people, and those people are trying to make a good product) or that it is not worth a whole lot of money--it really is a powerful tool. All I'm saying is that it's a game that I don't want to play right now. I don't want it to take up my time when I could be coming up with original ideas or reading other people's original ideas. Facebook isn't for that. So, I've recalculated.