Wednesday
Oct072009
Using Social Media As Your Main Portal For Contact, Don't Do It
Wednesday, October 7, 2009 at 4:29AM
Social media services are growing at a ridiculous rate and it is near expected that you have a social media profile. With such a wide presence, many of these social media properties have become as embedded in our lives as e-mail. You would be hard-pressed to find a contact of yours with an email without a social networking profile, whether it by Twitter, Facebook or even Myspace.
As such with any social media network, an in-house private messaging system is in place. If you have a social graph like I do (late teens - early twenties) than you probably agree that communicating with your friends via these platforms is much more effective than communicating with them via e-mail. People tend to be much more active (at least in my social graph) with their social media profiles than checking their e-mail. While I do not claim I represent all people, I do believe this situation applies to many other people belonging and actively using social networks. To these people, this is a mistake.
I will be quite blunt with the matter; I hate when people contact and try to pursue serious conversation on social networks. These messaging systems are simply not made to pursue serious in-depth discussion about a certain topic. They do not provide the rich-editing tools sometimes needed nor do they provide me with other various tools such as forwarding and CC. These though are features that could be lived without. What I can't live without though is the ability to search and own my e-mails.
If you have ever read the TOS of any social network, you are most likely going to find something mentioning the fact that data transferred over their site belongs to them. In effect, this means that these social networks can do what they please with your data. Now granted, breaking a user's trust like that would be internet-suicide and a sure way to never being trusted again, even with that though the thought still lingers. Also, you have no way of exporting your data, at least easily. There are currently no tools that I am aware of that allow you to store social media messages locally. So what do you do if the particular social network you are using loses your data? Nothing, you have lost your data. Lastly, e-mail is a distributed system. Meaning that even if Gmail is down, the whole e-mail ecosystem will not come to a crashing halt and you will eventually get your e-mail. With social networks you do not have this sort of "security blanket". When one things goes down, everything and everyone goes right along with it.
These reasons above should keep people from using social media as their main portal for contact, but sadly some people do. I have even some businesses use Facebook as their main portal of communication merely out of convenience, a decision they will soon regret. Of course, social media messaging system do have their place, such as talking about your day or connecting with an old friend, but that is the boundary. Beyond that, you should be using e-mail or you're doing it wrong.
As such with any social media network, an in-house private messaging system is in place. If you have a social graph like I do (late teens - early twenties) than you probably agree that communicating with your friends via these platforms is much more effective than communicating with them via e-mail. People tend to be much more active (at least in my social graph) with their social media profiles than checking their e-mail. While I do not claim I represent all people, I do believe this situation applies to many other people belonging and actively using social networks. To these people, this is a mistake.
I will be quite blunt with the matter; I hate when people contact and try to pursue serious conversation on social networks. These messaging systems are simply not made to pursue serious in-depth discussion about a certain topic. They do not provide the rich-editing tools sometimes needed nor do they provide me with other various tools such as forwarding and CC. These though are features that could be lived without. What I can't live without though is the ability to search and own my e-mails.
If you have ever read the TOS of any social network, you are most likely going to find something mentioning the fact that data transferred over their site belongs to them. In effect, this means that these social networks can do what they please with your data. Now granted, breaking a user's trust like that would be internet-suicide and a sure way to never being trusted again, even with that though the thought still lingers. Also, you have no way of exporting your data, at least easily. There are currently no tools that I am aware of that allow you to store social media messages locally. So what do you do if the particular social network you are using loses your data? Nothing, you have lost your data. Lastly, e-mail is a distributed system. Meaning that even if Gmail is down, the whole e-mail ecosystem will not come to a crashing halt and you will eventually get your e-mail. With social networks you do not have this sort of "security blanket". When one things goes down, everything and everyone goes right along with it.
These reasons above should keep people from using social media as their main portal for contact, but sadly some people do. I have even some businesses use Facebook as their main portal of communication merely out of convenience, a decision they will soon regret. Of course, social media messaging system do have their place, such as talking about your day or connecting with an old friend, but that is the boundary. Beyond that, you should be using e-mail or you're doing it wrong.
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