"Excuse Me for Being Old-fashioned"

I have very deep concerns about Facebook and what it's doing to our society. I know it's a wonderful way to make friends from around the world – although I've managed to do that with email.

What concerns me is this inclination to only have “virtual friends.” People are isolating themselves. Where are their face-to-face friends? Where are the friends they used to chat with by phone? What's with this constant texting? One line of bad spelling is a conversation?

Everything is completely impersonal, now. Yet, it's addictive and intrusive. While folks are out to lunch or with any friends at all, anywhere, they're texting and fooling around with other “friends” they don't even know. How rude can you get? It's as if they don't dare miss a message. What the hell's going to happen if they do? It's just incredibly stupid.

Do you know your next door neighbor? Probably not. And, why would anyone want to tell complete strangers the story of their life on Facebook? They don't even know who they're “talking” to.

Not to mention that all this information they're putting out there can come back and bite them in the butt at any time. It's costing people jobs – causing court cases to be lost – and who knows what else!

It amuses me to see the people worrying about Facebook's privacy policies all the while they're posting inappropriate material about themselves for the entire world to see. They tell things they should have better sense than to tell anyone but a closest friend - a real friend. Facebook people are not their friends!

Last week, I saw a commercial for a car that “allows you to use all your social media hands free.” WHAT?! I don't care whether you're using your hands, or not – how safe a driver are you while you're using social media at all? UNbelieveable!

Excuse me for being old-fashioned, but when push comes to shove – at least in the USA – folks will be cut off from the internet and they're going to wish they had real flesh and blood friends to turn to.

Social media, carried to the extremes it's been carried to, has done little but isolate folks – and put them in grave danger.

"Where Did All the Ezines Go?"

I'm really worried about all the online business owners who have stopped sending newsletters, then complain about their business going to pot. They can't sell anything if they don't have contact with potential customers.

I've made a concerted attempt to subscribe to all Chamber of Commerce - on the Web™ members' publications. I may have missed a few, but I've been surprised at the outcome.

Too many don't publish at all. Others only send out ads, without even a greeting from the sender - much less an article! WOW– I wonder who is reading those?

With all the fast-paced selling over the past years online, I came to a point of feeling like we all needed a break. During 2011, I called a moratorium on selling products – except for Chamber memberships.

No – I lied. I did ask for contributions to help me get “Just Sayin' ...” launched. But, that was it. And, yes, my bottom line suffered. Yet, with the economy so unstable, it saved me a lot of worry about what was happening.

What I did not do was lose contact with my lists. Our lists are our potential buyers. I only stopped hitting them over the head to buy stuff for a year.

But, I digress. The point is, online businesses can not survive without direct contact with potential customers. So, if you have an online business, it would be to your benefit to start communicating – or, go back to communicating, as the case may be.

No, I'm sorry - social networking doesn't cut it!