In my opinion @Microsoft’s Windows Live Spaces (WLS) provided the best and true Social media platform.
Users could set up their user-area (profile) to their own specific tastes, enabling background music, photos, customisable backgrounds and more importantly, a place to write and share.
Communities developed quickly and whether people knew each other, in the off-line world, or not (as much as individuals allowed) even strangers had the opportunity to get to know each other, with an easy ability to search for common interests or find people in countries you were interested in.
That along with the incorporation of Microsoft @Messenger, made it even easier to communicate with others, via video message, regular chat or text.
Back in 2005, WLS was where I started my love of Blogging and where I also enjoyed reading the Blog posts of others who had something to say.
To this day, I still have a handful of people I keep in-touch with from WLS, however, the support and input which was given in those days, tapered off.
Microsoft decided to close down WLS, initially sharing its writing platform with @WordPress before WordPress and @Google @Blogger became the writing platforms of choice.
I also tried Google’s Blogger for a while but WordPress was really the ‘closest’ replacement for WLS and for the first few years, it was a great substitute, a social platform for people with ‘something to say’.
Perhaps we all grew a bit tired of WordPress, maybe the majority of us just had to get on with ‘living life’…something was missing, I noticed the interaction and interest seemed to die off, for the majority.
I try my best to maintain and develop constructive relationships wherever I socialise and am happy to say that I never really stopped using WordPress and have met some great people in the process.
My WordPress usage was reduced with the rise of other social media platforms, although I visit @Youtube regularly, I initially didn’t want to go the @Vlogging route, however, recently I’ve had a change of mind and will be doing more on that platform in 2020.
Like others, I’ve used the older @FriendsReunited and @MySpace and I’ve also used @Tumblr, @Linkedin, @Facebook, @Twitter and @Instagram and searched for ways to try to generate the WLS/Wordpress vibe on those platforms, without success.
In my observations, on most of the aforementioned platforms, it would appear that you have to have a great deal of, shall I say…self-love.
You have to love showing(sharing) numerous amounts of photos or videos of yourself doing ‘whatever’ in order to receive responses.
Or you have to love sharing the weird, the wonderful the strange or humiliating videos etc. of others.
Please don’t misunderstand me, I obviously know that we all make use of social media however we choose or feel comfortable to.
It would seam that being deliberately controversial, ranting without filter or being a nasty troll, appears to get the majority of users (of the above platforms) engaged.
It’s way too time consuming, interferes with my writing and can easily side-track you from your working schedule.
I don’t intentionally set out to offend, however, some relatives, my in-laws and some of the religious folk I know, may disagree.
I can’t do narcissism, fakery or trolling…I know there are many who hide behind their screens but I try my best (however uncomfortable at times) to be as transparent and honest as possible.
Unlike some (I know) I will comfortably speak about and enter into a discussion or debate on anything I write about (face-to-face) offline, as well as online.
Sadly, the other social media platforms don’t seem to offer the interaction I crave, therefore I’m on a rebuilding mission to blog-visit, slow down, interact and follow others on WordPress in the obvious hope that the courtesy is returned.
I’ve drastically reduced my social media on-line footprint, for all the obvious reasons, however, WordPress is King for me and I hope, over time, to re-build a good network of interesting fellow Bloggers.
Phil G
G Man
#wordpress #youtube #blogger #tumblr #linkedin #facebook #twitter #instagram #writers #writing #blogging #network #sharing #blog #vlog #vlogging
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