Happy New Year one and all! Yes 2011 is now in and already the all important questions are being asked. Is this the start of a new decade or not? The BBC seems to think it is, so maybe we celebrated the millennium a year early, or perhaps the last decade was eleven years long instead in some sort of weird baker’s decade. Who knows.
The most important question we want answers for is this: what exactly are we calling this year? Twenty eleven, or two thousand and eleven? See, last year didn’t really make its mind up on what it wanted to be called, and I was kind of hoping this year would be a little less indecisive about it. But no one seems to know.
When people talk about the London Olympic games they say twenty twelve, so is this what we’re supposed to adopt? I’m so confused! Do we have to suffer with another year of indecision only for 2012 to put its foot down and demand the word twenty followed by the next two digit number? I sure hope the world doesn’t end otherwise that would be really annoying.
So yes, whatever it’s called, the new year has officially begun, it’s always quite a mixed occasion looking back at the year that has been and looking forward to what we hope to happen in the year to come. And what would New Year be without a song and dance and of course, the good old resolutions!
Every year I get asked what mine is and every year I tell them I don’t have one, mainly because I’m obviously perfect and wouldn’t need to change my life in any way, but also because it‘s a stupid and pointless thing to do, shouldn‘t you just be making positive changes all year round? I digress. However, this year, just to keep it fresh, I decided to make one. The resolution was simply this: to get with the times.
It’s been about a month now, and I’ve been avoiding it. That’s right, the new Facebook profile. Oh it fills me with such sorrow just thinking about it. I used to love Facebook it was just so handy to use and so very tempting to sit and waste time on. But now, now it’s just plain awful. Of course, Facebook has had many a facelift over the years it’s existed, and by-and-large I’ve liked the changes that they’ve made. But this one feels like such a step backwards.
Ever since I laid my poor innocent eyes on it I was disappointed, I didn’t have to change mine right away, but the knowledge that one day I would have to pained me greatly. So yes, on January 1st, New Year’s Day, I decided to do it, I mournfully changed my old faithful Facebook profile to the new one.
And I hate it.
Alright, I don’t hate it, it’s a step back but I’m slowly getting used to it. It’s pretty much the same only now it’s become less accessible. On new Facebook you have to literally press ‘status’ to post a status, or ‘post’ to write on someone’s wall; the tabs are now aligned vertically down the left rather than along the top, along with your friends; there are mini-pictures along the top putting less value on a profile pic and more on random Mr Men charts you happen to be tagged in; it looks really cluttered; and the text, don’t even get me started on the text. It’s tiny! I’m considering going to the opticians it’s that small!
There’s no one big thing I dislike, just a mixture of small changes that has me miffed. I just want it back to how it was, it was better, at least that’s my opinion. The main annoyance of all the wee ones is the unfortunate existence of advertisements.
Facebook used to be cool. Remember that scene from The Social Network? Facebook without ads is cool, with them it’s not. Now, Facebook has had averts for a while but four of them down the right hand side of my profile? Is that really necessary? It’s slowly getting full of them now, and it just adds to the all round tacky aura that it is recently getting. Seriously not cool! Timberlake was right.
Facebook is useful to me, so I’m not exactly going to get rid of it because they changed the layout. Unlike everyone else who sit and join groups in some sort of pathetic protest against a layout change, I don’t really care that much. I’ll deal with it, and so will everyone else. Until they change it again of course, then I’ll be out on the streets!
You may think my resolution madness would stop there, and it would be a reasonable thought to have, it is quite a lot of effort for one year. But no, I went one step further! Zuckerberg probably didn’t intend for this to happen, but upon looking at the new Facebook in the past month I’ve been considering its younger sibling and all round nemesis, Twitter.
Now, I’ve never understood Twitter. I’ve been on it a couple of times, on a few profiles and whatnot, and I don’t get what’s happening on it. Anyway, as of the first of this month I have taken the horrible plunge into the deep end and I can safely say that I still have no idea what is going on! Like a floundering child with no arm bands I’m attempting to navigate around the site trying to figure out how to do it and what it’s for.
From what I can tell it’s like Facebook, only it’s just purely status updates from the users, and you can talk to these users (I think) by putting an @ symbol before their name in one of your tweets. Maybe. I haven’t done that yet. It’s all a bit strange, when you view a profile I never know who is talking, it’s just @this and @that followed by RT and the hash key. What’s the hash key all about? Is that so you can fax the user? Still none the wiser on that one.
Regardless of the confusion, in terms of coolness Twitter kicks Facebook’s ass, maybe it’s the lack of adverts on it, I’m not entirely sure, but there is definitely something about it that makes it cool. If Facebook is like that advert where a grandfather gives his grandson a Werther’s Original, then Twitter is that James Bond-esque Virgin Atlantic advert.
Your social network’s either got it or it hasn‘t.
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If you want to check out or 'follow' my twitter page my name is crumpledpapyrus or @crumpledpapyrus, I'm not totally sure... here's the link:
http://twitter.com/crumpledpapyrus
The Virgin Atlantic ad is below, because it's cool.
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