WHAT THE HELL IS WHATSAPP? AND OTHER BITCHING TO DELAY TWO REVIEWS I'M BOGGED DOWN TRYING TO FINISH
Just When I Think I've Caught Up...
It's no secret (in fact you see it on every freaking computer and TV news source) that Facebook has the billions to spend on a texting app it claims it will 'keep separate' from Facebook and also keep affordable to the millions that use it (snicker). It's also no secret that Facebook keeps your profile and every bit of info you've ever wisely or unwisely put on your account - personal messages, pictures, etc.
Except for one freaking lousy poem that I personally wrote, apparently. Not that it was worthy of Poe or Keats or even a 9th grade Creative Writing student - but it was mine. See, Facebook has this little trick that has tripped me up more than once. So why haven't I learned? Hey, give me a break. My computer is fairly up to date although my phone, being six years old, is a dumbphone.
I don't swipe to answer calls, I don't tell everybody exactly where I am (who DOES that?), I don't text or twitter each moment of my life (especially while driving), I don't play Angry Birds on the toilet, I don't squint to watch tiny movies on a device that's supposed to be for communicating with other people or for emergencies - it makes phone calls. That's it.
If I want to take pictures with it there's an incredibly complicated process that... let's just say we don't use them for pictures. So this WHATSAPP thing is a total mystery to me and I hope it stays that way.
Oh yeah, Facebook. It has learned a little trick to make you pull your hair out faster than it's falling out anyway. It's no secret that because of how fast a person's news feed can go that how many people you can get to read your posts depend on the time of day you post them (and, thanks to the new 'selective' feed maybe not even then) so re-posting, although a pain in the ass for a lot of people (who wants to see the same thing over and over?) is often necessary to keep readership up.
I'm talking about my horror page now, 'cause I don't post (at least as myself) on my personal page anymore. The horror page tells me exactly how many people see each post. That can be a good thing if people are actually looking at anything.
Long story short (too late) if you do the 'share to your own timeline' trick you can get it to reappear on their newsfeed - at least for a few minutes. So you do that, and then delete the original. And that's where Facebook plays their latest trick to piss you off.
Both the original and repost disappears.
This has happened with status updates, pictures, and in this case, a poem I wrote that was actually pretty decent but I was too dependent on social media to back up on my computer. Dammit. It has happened with pictures often enough that I ALWAYS have copies of them but my words of (ahem) wisdom? Nope. And yet still I trust that when I hit the 'share' button and repost a damned picture, poem or State Of The Nation Address that it's gonna be there when I delete the original and refresh my freaking page. Pffft.
I even posted a message to the NSA, asking for my poem back in the wads of personal information I'm sure they're holding about me. That probably wasn't smart. If I disappear, at least all of you will know why.
This kind of freaks me out, because I have had stuff pop up that I HADN'T EVEN POSTED YET in places like Google Search and Google+. Not this poem though, no, that would have been too easy. I looked through countless places trying to get help and advice and this is what I saw most: Facebook is arbitrary about what it will and won't do and will and won't help you with. And yet still most don't use Google+. Hmm, good point. While I have a Google page and of course this blog, I still am stuck on Facebook's teat. So why not dump them altogether, develop a horror movie page separate from my personal page on Google and just... hmm. I think it goes back to that 'most don't use Google+' statement.
Don't get me wrong - the readership on this Google blog is much MUCH more than I ever expected it could be and I won't stop thanking everyone for that. My Facebook horror page? Not so much. I've had it for about five months. I have 58 'likes'. Hmph. It tells me I'm reaching roughly 2,000 people but I would do soooo much better if only I was willing to pay for possible future 'likes'. OR the wonderful option of picking a post that more than the usual people paid attention to and 'boost' it by paying $5 in blackmail money for Facebook to make sure it appears on people's feed - otherwise (shrug) they might see it, they might not.
So if you happen to see a poem attached to this picture, I would much appreciate it if you send me a copy. It's got to be on the internet somewhere - everything else certainly is.
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