Sharing

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….   :)