That Blog

Despite every effort to stage a mass exodus from Facebook on 31 May, it was a complete non-event for the movement organisers. For every Facebook user who pledged to delete their account as part of the Quit Facebook Day campaign, there are more than 15,000 other Facebook members who didn’t.Only 32,522 people pledged to delete their profile and it is possible that not all of them followed through

Facebook claims that they average 150,000 new members a day, so it is estimated, that based on normal FB signup pace, for every user who threatened to quit, there would have been 4 or 5 new signups.

So it seems that despite the occasional information security blunder, Facebook is still going strong.

As the most popular social network in the world, Facebook has become the de facto destination for web users to share their thoughts, photos and videos and connect with long lost friends and loved ones.

However,  there does seem to be growing movement calling for people to delete their Facebook accounts. Critics of the social networking site, are citing privacy concerns and plummeting trust in the company and its leader, Mark Zuckerburg. The “delete-your-Facebook” movement-scheduled for May 31- doesn’t seem to have picked up quite as much support as its originators had hoped…but maybe it is still early days.  There are over 450 million Facebook users at the moment…it is going to take a serious amount of disgruntled users to put a dent in that number!!

Facebook, it would appear, is comfortable that most users won’t even consider quitting despite the multiple bugs. Maybe, Facebook are relying on the fact that when it comes to the web, most users tend to gravitate towards the familiar. For example, when it comes to search and e-mail, they go for Google…and Facebook is the tried, tested and trusted social media space…that, and the difficulty of actually deleting a profile on FB (by all accounts, it is not an easy thing to do).

Facebook recently launched a platform that allows sites and apps to share information about the users in order to tailor offers, features and services to each users interests and tastes. The use of the Facebook “Like” button on non-facebook sites will give users the ability to share their favorite songs, movies, restaurants and news items back with their Facebook friends and integrate them into their profile. This information can be made available to vendors looking to gather information about potential customers. This leaves many people completely mortified at the through of so much personal information being made public.

I personally am quite a fan of FB and so am not sure that I will be signing up to the 31 May initiative, but will be watching with interest to see what happens. Will you quit?

There is a great new buying club idea about to launch in SA and will give you access to some incredible specials and discounts. If you haven’t heard about it already, you can just thank That Blogger for keeping to up to date with what’s happening on the great world wide web!!! The site is called Twangoo and the guys behind the idea are working hard to secure some awesome exclusive deals at restaurants,  spas, hotels and some great exclusive retailers just for their members.

Keep a look out for more details on Twangoo launch date on That Blog and some of the awesome deals that will be on offer. But, in the mean time…why not sign up for their newsletter and check out their page on facebook. They are running a competition to win a R3000.00 Diesel voucher…now that is not something to sneeze at!!

Exciting times aren’t they??