I am a big fan of everything Web 2.0, including social networking. I just decided that the negatives of Facebook outweighed the positives and deactivated my account. Why? First, what I liked about Facebook was that it was a “professional” social networking community. A person used their real name and real interests. Facebook at the same time did a very nice job of creating exquisite privacy controls, so that your friends could know about what they needed to know, and professional contacts could know what they needed to know.

Then Facebook opened up the world of applications, which was interesting enough. Except that applications begat applications. I couldn’t find someone’s Wall to write on. I had to find the super-duper-neon-Wall 3.0. And then the requests came from friends to add application x or application y to my account so I could rate them, compare myself to them, etc etc. I think we need to get back to a time and place where we sit down and tell each other how we feel in person. Perhaps I am revealing my GenX-ness in that comment. But maybe not.

And finally, the news that maybe the monetizing application isn’t going so well made the decision a relatively easy one.

I have an identity here that people can find just by Google-ing me. All the applications I need I have added.

I’m a little worried that there’s going to be a bump in the social-networking road at this point.

And I’m still trying to figure out what the value of LinkedIn is.