Thoughts on Social Media

I've been thinking about social media quite a bit lately. While I've been on Twitter, User groups, and Blogger for a long time, I didn't really get into social media until I was invited to join Google+. It was so cool. Like a HUGE BBS with an opportunity to meet lots of different people. And posting links and different media was seamless.

Unfortunately, G+ tech writers didn't like it for reasons (I believe the phrase was ghost town) and was not easily monetized for Google so 👋🏽 Where would people go? A bunch of platforms but the link seemed to be Twitter. I jumped to Diaspora because...I got an invite. Twitter is making changes that make people want to leave and instead of an open-source they're going where they're invited - BlueSky. And because they're people they want everyone there so they can have content.

And I get the invite thing - people like to fit in. An invite implies you'll have a community where you can be assured you'll fit in with someone. If it's the right place it's easier to initiate conversations because you get a hint of the tone of the place and have common terms of reference.  And you have access to casual help if you need it.

Speaking of help - no wonder people are willing to trade their personal data and being marketed to for ease of use. I want to be in a community where I know I will get casual conversations I can enjoy while expanding my horizons beyond personal experience but...distributed means you have to find all the linking pieces. I like where I am on Diaspora but I'd like to be on Friendrica because it links better with Mastodon and I can use one app for both. I've heard you can autopost between the two. Ideally, I'd like somewhere easily store photos for sharing that would be separate from personal ones and that would self-delete.

Or I can just use separate apps on my phone since that's how I do most social media anyway. Much easier to look for an app for Mastodon than do all this blending - or is it. I would learn that.