A few days ago, I was on the verge of quitting Facebook. This was not about privacy. Facebook was in the throws of more bad press related to privacy, but it wasn’t that. The problem is, it’s all a bit – well, not what I want.

Maybe its my fault.  I’m hardly ever there. If my Facebook friends think they’re communicating with me – they’re wrong. Most of the time, I’m not listening. I log in about once or twice a week. The rest of the time, a virtual version of me waits as a placeholder, collecting “news” from my facebook friends. Somehow, it all seems a bit phony. We think we’re networked, but really we’ve just networked our virtual presences – and we drop in every now and then to see how they’re getting on.

The problem is, when I do drop in – virtual me has been overwhelmed by a deluge of pointlessness. In fact, I feel like I need to apologise to virtual me for what I put him through every day. Don’t get me wrong. There’s some interesting stuff, but its in the minority. My facebook “news” seems to fit into four categories.

1) Interesting and genuiene comments, thoughts and content.

2) Inane comments, thoughts and content.  

3) Game updates. So and so hatched an egg. This person found a jewel. Great, whatever. I hope they’re enjoying their games - but I don’t care how that’s going. I understand why I get the updates -but I’ll never be drawn into playing farmville. Couldn’t I get a “turn of the inane updates from Farmville” option…please?

4) Content from people and organisations that have read the books and heard the speeches about using web 2 tools for marketing. Here is the news. It’s not a clever subtle way to market to us without us noticing. We’ve all read the books. We’ve all heard the speeches. We can see what you’re doing. Go away. Go back to honest advertising. Buy a billboard.

So there I was on the brink of deleting (as much as you can) my Facebook account – but I didn’t.  My virtual presence got a stay of execution. It’s easier to research my comments about the latest Facebook privacy related story if I’m a user.  

If I’ve got to stay, I might as well make the most of it – so drop me a note. Let me know when your virtual pet is happy, or when you’ve released a new product. You’ll find me at Facebook.