I've been thinking about social media a little lately, probably an offshoot of thinking about websites that I consider to be significant in my life.

Good old LJ, though it isn't what it used to be activity-wise, is still my favorite. And that's why I'm into my 14th year on this site, which is fairly crazy when you think of Internet lifetimes. A lot of things that were big in 1999, when I joined LJ, aren't much on the radar anymore. AOL. MySpace. Yahoo! Napster. Most of those are still around in some capacity, I guess, but certainly not what they were then. This is an interesting read, a list of 100 hot websites of 1999. Tripod! Ask Jeeves! SixDegrees! Ha! Ahh, CDNow, where I made my first online purchase (pre-HTML, even, when it was only accessible by telnet!).

Anyway, I love LJ because the content is so much better. It requires actual writing, and actual reading, and actual thought. Plus it maintains a true historical record--I can go back and see what I was up to around this time in any of the past 13 years now. And that's cool. It's not just little dribs and drabs that I fire off into cyberspace, to maybe get a couple Likes or comments and never see again.

And that's probably my main complaint with Facebook and Twitter, aside from the shallowness of the content itself--there's no record, really. I can scroll back through my feed on either site, I suppose, but it's not the same. And as for what gets posted, it's pretty rare that it's both original AND thought-provoking. Sometimes it's one, sometimes it's the other, but rarely both and usually neither. :) So I have a Twitter account that I never use, and I'm seriously reconsidering my Facebook usage.

It's not that I spend a lot of time on FB, or post a whole lot--well, I did leading up to the election last year, because FB has tended to be my soapbox for politickin. But the debates I've gotten into there are usually less than fulfilling, and more often leave me feeling dirty. And really what's the point of posting this article or sharing that meme anyway? The people who agree might give me a Like and move on; the people who disagree scoff and scroll on at best, or engage in idiotic Internet debate that leaves us both angry and more stubbornly convinced of the correctness of our own views. So it's just not productive. And knowing that is not always sufficient to make me stop, I am sorry to say. So I've been unfriending a lot of folks there lately, mostly people who haven't had anything to do with my life in the 20 years since high school, and whose political views I find abhorrent. If I like you and we have more of a personal connection maybe I'll put up with right-wing nonsense, but if I hardly knew you in high school and haven't been in the same ZIP code with you since then, what's the point? I would actually consider completely deactivating my FB account, but there are people who I don't really connect with at all elsewhere, and it's handy for letting family know what I'm up to (or when I've posted new photos to my Flickr). So I guess I'll keep it around and just try to refrain from the political stuff.

Ah, Flickr--I guess that counts as social media too, and as such it's right up there with LJ as one of my favorite (and long-term) sites. Again, it's original content that takes effort to produce and to properly appreciate, and I enjoy that about it. I don't much utilize the social aspects these days, though, and now that I'm thinking on it I should replace much of the time I do spend on FB with Flickr instead. The Groups on Flickr are really an excellent resource--there are groups for everything under the sun, every topic and skill level, and lots of good knowledge there. Back when I hated my day job and wanted to work towards going full-time with photography, I got a lot out of the Starting (now called Succeeding With) A Wedding Photography Business (SWPB) group. girlguitarist, anywhereanyone, if you're on Flickr you should definitely check that group out. Lots of established and fledgling pros sharing their insights on everything from gear and technique to the marketing and business side of things. I've been out of the loop there for some time myself, but I just might get back to it. Though it will just stoke my gear lust more. ;)

Well, I dunno what I expected this post to be like, but this wasn't it. Ain't that always the way, as they say? Just some rambling thoughts, I guess--and that's just what I like about LJ. 140 characters, ha!