Having been recently bit by the Facebook privacy issue (or lack of, more appropriately), I had a lot more incentive to try an alternative that would respect my privacy. I recently lost a friend, whom I have known since high school for 27 years, over some comments I made on a thread on Facebook to an entity that I am "friends" with there which he neither knew or cared to know, concerning a rather current political "hot topic". My comments were made and directed to a selected group of people that I would have never shared publicly in person, especially with this friend who vastly differs from opinion with mine and who's feelings I respected (on a side note, IMO, this is a rather trivial matter to throw away what used to be at one time a close friendship and of that duration, but whatever).

Point is, Facebook seems to feel that ANYTHING I post should be of interest to ANYONE who is on my friends list, whether those people know each other or not. A sentiment I don't share. I couldn't care less what comment one of my friends makes on a picture someone posted whom I don't know or never will know or on a thread they commented on to some random person, etc. Isn't that type of behavior considered eavesdropping, spying, or dare I say borderline stalking in the real world? Why does Facebook think it fine to do by default with anyone who is part of their community, I wonder (unless explicitly given permission to do so by said individual)?

Anyway, let's just say that G+ seems very appealing to me right now. Problem is, no one I care about socializing with online is there or posts at all. In fact, this /. article inspired me to check on my G+ profile and what I found was a post from a friend from July of last year. Not very a compelling reason to want me to convert. Facebook, on the other hand, has many posts from family and friends that I personally know who may live far away geographically, and is a convenient way to keep in contact rather than try and play phone tag or email tag, etc. (they post when they have the time and I can read it and respond when I have time and it is more "interactive" as a whole over other mediums).

So for now, Facebook is the winner to me even with the annoying layout and mixture of irrelevant drivel (the new "Trending Articles" placed on the home page Newsfeed just sucks and doesn't add to my enrichment there at all). I am just very much more cognizant to the fact that anything I post there must be something I wouldn't mind the entire world knowing. I will stick with it and take the good with the bad. If I want to say something to a friend privately, I will just send an old fashioned email or perhaps a private message on Facebook, for the time being.

So really...why do we need to go there?