social media Archives

Hunting for a set of decent Social Media platforms

social media politician amoeba will engulf us all

It is a new year, time to clear out the old. Over time ended up with multiple accounts on too many different social media platforms to continue wasting time on and bothering with. So I am making the decision to drastically cut down the list to only a few that I plan to actively continue using.

Synopsis

For this activity I looked at twenty one (Yikes!) platforms I may have had userid's on. 
Thirteen are now sanitized, purged and deleted.
Two are still being evaluated, but most likely will be flushed. 
and a potentially new one is being looked at.
Five platforms have been kept, one in each of the major functional category 
     (photo sharing, video sharing, business contacts, team messaging, blogging)

The caveat: Nothing is actually free. On platforms owned by the likes of Meta(facebook/instagram/whatsapp), Google(youtube/blogger), Microsoft(LinkedIn), SpaceKaren(twitter), China(tiktok, 500px), you are primarily the product with your data being harvested for resale.

Selection criteria

Must be “free” to use, (since you are creating the platforms content)
Ads and algorithms must be blockable, (As I have absolutely no interest in seeing their time wasting BS)
Must be “free world” owned.
Must be easy to use from multiple platforms and devices.

Decision key

Keep   = actively build on and use platform
?quit? = still evaluating exiting.
maybe  = need more information
quit   = clear/sanitize old content, abandon platform, leave a zombie placeholder
delete = wipe and delete id immediately.
n/a    = not applicable, platform unsuitable, remove any IDs.

Posts on retained platforms sanitized using a "free" schedulable post redaction tool.

Platform table

Platform	Purpose	Quick look and Impressions.	Cost	Decision
Vero	Photo & media sharing	Linear feed, supports still images, video, music, text as separate post categories and NO ADS or algorithms.	free	Keep
Youtube (Google)	Video sharing	Video centric full of ads (blockable) and algorithm controlled feed	free	Keep
Linkedin (Microsoft)	Business contacts	Professional business profile and forums	free / paid	Keep
Slack	Team messaging	Business level messaging and conferencing with team rooms	free / paid	Keep (sanitized)
Blogger (Google)	Blog(s)	Blogging, one userid can host multiple blogs (AKA Blogspot)	free	Keep
Facebook (Meta)	bit of everything	Mostly obnoxious rambling twits, conspiracy idiots, and cat pictures. Trying to be a bit of everything and failing monumentally. full of ads (blockable) and algorithm controlled feed (blockable)	free / paid post boost	?quit? (sanitized)
Instagram (Meta)	~~photo~~ short form video garbage	Moving to be short form video centric, lost its focus. full of ads (blockable) and algorithm controlled feed	free / paid post boost	?quit? (sanitized)
youpic	photo gigging seller/buyer connections	image centric, seems like a mix of instagram/twitter aimed at gigging photographers and buyers.	limited free / paid	maybe
flickr (SmugMug)	photo sharing	image centric, with blogging capability	limited free / paid	quit
ViewBug	photo sharing & contests	image centric, many contests, “likes are a stroke fest”, constant push to upgrade	limited free / paid	quit
Vemo (PayPal)	video sharing	video centric, too limited	limited free / paid	quit
twitter	mindless babbling	platform self destructing, full of conspiracy idiots, full of ads (blockable) and algorithm controlled feed.	free / paid	quit
pinterest	image pinning	image (theft?) centric, peculiar full of ads (blockable), more suited to old folks homes	free	quit
500px (China Visual Group)	photo sharing	Bought by *China* Visual Group	paid	delete(d)
deviantart (WIX)	art sharing	unsuitable, more for artists than photographers	free / paid	n/a
WhatsApp (Meta)	messaging	unsuitable, messaging app	free	n/a
SnapChat	messaging	unsuitable, messaging app with story capability	free	n/a
reddit (Advance Publication)	forums	unsuitable	free	n/a
tumblr (Automattic)	micro blogging	unsuitable	free	n/a
TikTok (ByteDance)	short form video garbage	Owned by *China* ByteDance, short form videos. Unsuitable for anyone with a functioning brain.	free	n/a
BeReal	snapshot sharing	Photo sharing app, where you have no control over when you get to snap one image daily. Something stupider than TikTok, if that is even possible.	free	n/a

Social Media Platforms examined.

Vero Another social media image sharing service goes hunting to take over the pack in the cloud — Another social media image sharing service goes hunting to take over the pack in the cloud

Moved to Vero yet?

Look for me as “Peter Pauer” on Vero

New: Vero has launched a desktop app with limited capability, so you can now maintain your id stream from a real computer not just the mobile apps!

What is Vero?

Vero is an image sharing social media service similar to Instagram with some MAJOR usage differences!

Vero has (image, video, music, text, several others) post type capability and you can select which you want to see for the people you follow, and you can restrict who can see your post to your connections or followers.

The differences

there are NO AD’s to flood your timelines.
and it has a NO algorithm linear timeline, so you see what people are doing as they post the content.

Rapidly growing

Right now it is experiencing explosive growth. Over the last few days Vero has become adopted by photographers and other creatives who are flocking in droves to set up accounts on the service.

Photographers and creatives who are completely fed up with the crazy things and algorithm scrambled timelines happening over on Instagram.

It’s user base streaked past the 1 million mark to well over 3 million in just the last few days. And its continuing to rapidly grow. This unexpected explosive growth has causing service interruptions as the servers it is on could not handle the new rapid load growth.

Subscription model, a good thing!

Originally the first million users to signup were to have free lifetime access, after which new users would need to pay a small yearly access fee.
However the unintended service interruptions are good news for new people wanting to setup accounts. As they have caused Vero to extended the lifetime free signup access to new users until they get all issues resolved from the high growth rates.

A side benefit of becoming a paid access service might be no or few bots!
After all who is going to want to pay to create automated spam bot accounts?

The App and futures

The app “Vero – True Social” has jumped to #1 in downloads on google store and itume’s. (Currently it is only accessible from a mobile phone platform.)

Will it be successful and knock the ad clogged, scrambled timeline, berzerk rules on who see what post Instagram out?
Only time can tell!
But if Instagram does not wise up and clean up its growing stupidity Vero has a good chance at taking over.

Is it for you? Can’t say. But I grabbed my slot while the getting was good (free) and will see what develops on this new platform.

For more information their website is at https://www.vero.co/