Swabbing the decks

I'm swabbing the decks me hearties! Yep - it's time to do some spring cleaning, so I just deleted my Friends Reunited account. Had to really, because firstly I have never really used it - it feels just a little old and outmoded now - and secondly, I kept receiving annoying little updates via e-mail. I wouldn't have minded so much if the FR message didn't persist in starting with 'Stephen...' Look, no-one except my mother and Graham Attwell (no they are not the same person) has called me 'Stephen' in a very long time. If they do I'll not answer. I'm Steve to my friends and colleagues (note the distinction) and Tim to those who are a little confused about my digital identity. Not Stephen. That's guaranteed to get my back up every time.

I got shot of my Friends Reunited account in the same way I did with Plurk, Bebo, Myspace and a whole host of other not so useful tools. Facebook survived by the skin of its teeth, mainly because at the time I was (just a little bit) obsessed with Farmville, and also because a lot of my friends still communicate with me on my Facebook wall. (It's also a sureptitious way to keep tabs on my two teenage daughters, but don't tell them - they don't read this blog, so I hope I'm relatively safe mentioning it here... maybe). Facebook has some uses, so I'm keeping it. However, Twitter and my blog are now my most important Web 2.0 tools. There are a few others - you can read here about my top ten web tools.

On reflection, the reason I have been shedding so many of the services I so naively blundered into during my early days using the social web, is because they become a little like old clothes. I'm told that if you don't wear a garment for 6 months, you are probably very unlikely ever to wear it again. It's the same with many web tools. Suddenly they aren't so useful anymore. You leave them derelict, and don't use them for a few months, and they become like old clothes. You forget your password and can't be asked to request a reminder. Unwanted, probably outgrown, and looking slightly worse for wear - these old spaces go past their sell by date. I give my old clothes away to charity shops, or dump them if they are beyond repair. A purge now and then of old web tools I no longer frequent feels like another part of my life laundry.

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'Swabbing the decks' by Steve Wheeler is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Non-Commercial-Share Alike 2.0 UK: England & Wales License.
Based on a work at steve-wheeler.blogspot.com.