Well, everything is shared now.
It seems it’s not appropriate for you to listen to music
online, check the news, watch a video or enjoy/consume/comment on anything via
the internet without sharing that you have done so. I have never before seen more companies wanting my Facebook
login details so that as I do things with their services, they can post to my
Facebook/twitter/pinterest/etc accounts that I have used them (and therefore
gain free marketing in the process).
I can only guess this will increase in frequency as time rolls on.
A good example - I read some reviews of the new Australian TomTom
navigation app for iPhone yesterday, and users were complaining about the
requirements for linking your GPS travels to facebook and twitter – citing this
as a “bolted on, not thought out feature that is useless and cumbersome”.
“David has filled up his car with ‘insert brand of premium
unleaded’ petrol at ‘insert service station location’” status updates are not
far away methinks.
To be honest, I am struggling a little with this
hyper-sharing situation that I find myself in. More than ever we know what others are up to, but somehow
personally I seem less connected to a lot of these people. Maybe I am personally reaching a
saturation point with sharing services gagging to get my ‘business/personal
information/contacts email addresses’.
I have found a number of times recently when catching up
with good friends of mine, as they start telling me a story about their lives
and I think ‘yep, I saw when you posted that on Facebook’. I also find myself talking about ‘things
on the internet’ with people a lot – ‘have you seen that video/ad/viral campaign’?
I certainly see the benefits of having an all-encompassing
platform for sharing – and it seems that Facebook is the king, never to be
dethroned. Everyone is on there,
including myself, and everyone is posting via multiple platforms across multiple platforms. I have friends who link their work twitter
accounts to post on facebook, their instagram pictures are shared though facebook,
their spotify music is shared on Facebook, and blogs (like this one!) too – it
is getting a bit hectic.
I very good friend of mine is doing her PHD on digital/virtual
communications (her blog is here http://virtualmusing.wordpress.com/),
and asking some thought-provoking questions about how to manage/value/control
our online interactions and persona's.
Perhaps I am finding the short term, big dollar, transient
nature of some of these services/businesses challenging. Does anyone actually use Foursquare? Are people actually bothered with
Groupon and really saving money?
Does anyone look at Pinterest sites and really get anything out of them
that they can’t find on the numerous other similar services?
Is it possible that the internet is just a “massive
distraction device” (trademark pending) that keeps us ‘busy’ doing not a lot,
and keeps us more connected to marketing and consumption than is first
apparent? I hope not - I still love it, but I think I need to go and sit out in the bush for a
week and unplug…. :)
