Here’s a link to the very helpful info Entropy recommended at Melissa Wiley’s site. Some good ideas (in addition to what Julie & Sarah mentioned bleg combox.) Hey and wow, another great blog to read while I’m at it. Yay.
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What’s the big deal about the Google change? Here’s what I wrote in Melissa’s combox when I thanked her for the info:
Thank you for posting this! I’m feeling the pain of not being able to share posts anymore. I don’t like to do my topic-sharing on the social networks, because most of what I read and write about on the internet is politics and religion, two topics that don’t mesh well with my very diverse real-life set of friends. So I keep FB and the like purely cocktail-party talk, and if people want to know more about what I think, they can click on my website link.
I don’t have a double life on the internet anymore than I do in real life. But I do try (no seriously, I do try) not to be a jerk and a bore. My real-life friends are very kind, considerate people who make a point of not ramming some topic down my throat that I don’t care to debate. I try to return the favor. My friends on Facebook are real people I know in real life, people I respect and whose company I enjoy. The link to this blog is on my facebook profile — if anyone wants to know what I think about death or taxes, they can click. But they don’t have to. I like it that way.
I debated whether maybe Google+ should be more like this blog and less like Facebook, and therefore, hey, yeah, fill it with links about politics and religion, why not? But I don’t like that solution, for the same reason I don’t like (and therefore don’t do) flooding FB with Fr. L and Darwin and all the team.
And don’t tell me that Google+ promises to keep all my circles separate blah blah blah. I’ll believe it when I see it. The general rule on the internet is that even when I try not to bore people by linking stuff in places it doesn’t belong, some clever inventor decides to combine it all anyway. Also, I’m not looking for a new hobby. So building up a thousand separate “circles” isn’t on my list. If I do Google+ (and I suppose I probably will), you’ll all be in one very large circle. Feels like a giant Girl Scout Camp ice-breaker activity.