A Sane Look At “Social Media”

Comedian Louis C.K. recently announced that he’s quitting MySpace and Facebook.

Some of you may have noticed that I no longer have a facebook page and that my myspace profile is mangled.
No, I was not hacked. I have been trying to cancel myspace for a few weeks and was having trouble, so I destroyed what was there. I have now reached someone there who is promising me that they will let me leave. I have no grudge against myspace or facebook. It’s hard to explain. I just don’t want to do these things anymore and I started to feel like I had to. So I stopped. That’s all.

People will tell me that that kind of networking is vital for my career. Well, I guess I’m willing to go ahead and find out that no one is coming to my shows because I don’t have a myspace or a facebook account. I wish all of you in the social network world a terrific whatever you’re doing. If you still want to reach me, you can come here to my website. I will try to use the time I have freed up by killing those things to update this page more often.

A good life, or a hard life lived well to all of you.

Louis C.K.

(emphasis mine)

Bravo.  Finally someone who “gets” that for 99% of entertainers, companies, and entrepreneurs, these sites are an unnecessary time suck that build the site owners’ presence, not their own.  When updating 2, 3 ,or 30 “social media” sites becomes more of a chore than one’s actual trade, it’s time to walk away.

I applaud Louis C.K.’s decision to simply walk away.  Maybe he’s been reading Cal Newport.

He’s not giving up “Web 2.0″  entirely, however.

ps. I still have twitter.

This highlights the crux of  Twitter’s appeal – short, focused updates that take a minimal amount of effort. A simple, effective, communication strategy, ala Three Sentences, that lets the practitioner focus on what they do best – their trade.