A couple of months ago, Path – the social network – was shut down. I guess it was inevitable, but it left me without a social network to share. Facebook isn’t a social network anymore and beyond them, there isn’t much else. Except maybe Instagram.
A month ago, I setup a private finsta account. I asked my Path “friends” to join and I’ve been using it for a while now. It works well I’ve to say. Even my parents get it and use it now. My mom wasn’t on Instagram at all and my dad just kicked out all of his “Facebook” Instagram followers and set his account to private.
It’s interesting how Instagram really tries hard to get me to follow a billion other people and given the follow requests, they’re actively “marketing” my profile to others. But barring those “annoyances”, it does work. I do miss the ability to just check-in into a location and post a random thought, but most 90% of my posts were photos anyway so it’s close enough. For check-ins, I just make a screenshot of Apple Maps and post that.
I’m glad that Instagram doesn’t have the silly real name policy Facebook has and allows you to create multiple profiles. The app makes it easy to switch from one profile to another. Also, Instagram doesn’t have any features which make a post accidentally go to a large unintended group of people. I’m good.
At least with Instagram I know it’s not going away. I can live with the ads.
Did I miss much?
A year without social media
You could just use a mailinglist
Alternative to Facebook
A love letter
Path
It’s not hard at all
Replacing an iPhone battery myself