Sick of Facebook? You're not alone

One of the most irritating things about Facebook is its News Feed - it has become spam.

On logging onto Facebook to see what my friends were up to this morning, I learned that one of them was playing Facebook Scrabble, one had taken a "How Manly Are You" quiz, and that another "Found a lost cow on their farm" on the application Farmville.

Facebook might have been the first social networking platform to implement news feeds, but it needs a lesson on what constitutes "news".

Facebook also makes friend suggestions of everyone you have ever emailed. Ever. I don't consider people that I made a TradeMe purchase from a good suggestion of "People I May Know", but somehow Facebook seems to think we'd make good buddies.

The Facebook interface just gets messier and messier.

The September 2008 update spawned hundreds of groups in opposition to what was branded New Facebook, some with over a million members. Just months later in March 2009 the company did it again - with 94 per cent of users polling against another updated Facebook layout.

Most of us are still wishing that the "Back to Old Facebook" link still existed. Facebook uses your personal information to target you with advertising. As a test I put "working out" as one of my interests, and only a day later my profile page was filled with subtly placed links that claimed to make my abdominals pop in just 30 days.

Some might find targeting ads useful, but for most of us they are too Big Brother. Speaking of Big Brother, Facebook's privacy issues of late have tainted its reputation.

In particular the revelation than even upon deletion of one's account, Facebook keeps copies of all information including emails and other private user data. Knowing that your personal information will indefinitely remain on Facebook (unless you manually delete each post) is just a little too creepy.

THE RIVALS: BEBO AND MYSPACE

Facebook focuses on efficient one-on-one communication while MySpace and Bebo offer something broader - a way to encompass culture, creativity and expression through full-scale blogs and multimedia.

MySpace and Bebo one-up Facebook's basic capabilities, while both offering the one-on-one features as well.

MySpace and Bebo are customisable. One significant difference between Facebook and its competitors is its lack of personalisation; users are limited to just one stale format and plain text. While Bebo enables the use of personalised skins (backgrounds), MySpace goes one better to allow users to format their profiles using HTML and CSS.

MySpace is also an invaluable resource for discovering, listening to, sharing and promoting music. Artists and bands are able to upload their entire discographies on MySpace, consisting of MP3 songs. It launched the careers of Lilly Allen and Sean Kingston among countless others, and official MySpace Music pages continually offer tangible benefits for friends such as gig offers and booking connections.

Bebo offers one of the web's premier examples of social aggregation: Lifestream. In an aesthetically pleasing manner, Bebo bands together all of your social networking accounts into one news feed in a clean, automated way. Lifestream means you can view activity on your Bebo, Facebook, MySpace, Twitter and YouTube pages in one go, plus use your Gmail or Yahoo Mail accounts. As a bonus, you don't even need your own Bebo page to use it.

Unlike Facebook Mobile, Bebo Mobile doesn't need to be accessed via a web- capable phone. The Bebo Open Mobile Network, available through Telecom, lets users send and receive updates by text message, and even post photos by MMS.

Twitter, on the other hand, offers a whole world of benefits that Facebook can't trump. For starters, Twitter's potential for brand building is enormous. It is a very powerful tool for advertising promotions and events, and is particularly good for instant opinions on anything - market research by the use of polls has never been easier.

News is also broken on Twitter before anywhere else on the web. When you've only got 140 characters to spread the word, you can update the world much faster than even the savviest online journalists.

MySpace, Bebo and Twitter can far more effectively be used for business purposes, as they don't rely on personal information. Your Facebook page is too personal to let your boss, clients and colleagues see, especially as you have no immediate control over others' photo tagging. Its competitors, conversely, can be tailored for promotional purposes - and nothing else.

- © Fairfax NZ News