I think it’s a good thing that I’m starting to analyse a service before using it. I’ve had a few bad experiences with social services because I impulsively signed up. My inbox was filled with spam messages coming from these services, privacy issues appeared, and if I used some service, it turned out to be a total bore after some time.

The worst decision you can make when choosing from this ocean of social services is to use a service just because “everyone’s on it” and it’s cool. If you are choosing a service, analyse the advantages it can offer you and then decide if it’s worth it.

These should be the main questions you should ask yourself when signing up:

• Why should I create an account on “New Social Network X“?
• What are the advantages of this service?
• How can it help me?
• How will it affect my online privacy?

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We share so much personal babble about us on so many social networks. The internet has become the marketer’s dream, if one knows how to use it in one’s interest.

We’ve started to shed the clothes of anonymity, thinking that the Internet will give us at least a small amount of fame. Those 15 minutes of fame, at least. Or 15 MB of fame, if we move the whole thing online.

I am witnessing – as we all do – a complete renunciation of privacy in favor of a weird transparency that on the long run will affect our relationships, whether they are professional, love or family relations. We’re in a fast-forward medium that also allows us to skip moments. We only want the start and the end, forgetting about what’s in-between.

We share pictures on Facebook, let the whole world know we’re in a relationship with another Facebook user, tweet about things that a decade ago were considered intimate.

That’s why I am asking you: where are we heading? What’s the future of “sharing” and how does the current state affect us on the long run?

A few days ago I read something really interesting on Seth Godin‘s blog, an idea that’s been buzzing me a lot lately. The Internet is full. And Mr. Godin is not talking about physical storage, which is continuously growing. He’s talking about us, the Internet users. WE are full. For example, I am feeling full of all the social media/social networks/keeping in touch with friends, reading blogs, etc. And it seems that I don’t find anything new on the Internet lately.

I had an account on most of the popular social networks, including Myspace, Facebook, Twitter, etc. Because I felt overwhelmed by them, I started quitting my accounts one by one. At this moment, I am using Twitter, Facebook and Linkedin with their usage exactly in this specific order. The “super-duper” trio.

Theoretically, if we would stop using the Internet for a couple of years, leaving behind everything that’s online and web related, the enthusiasm might return and some really cool apps would be created after this “hibernation”. Although the technology gives us the possibility to create the most interesting things we are “getting used to” the old things and not looking to create some advanced web apps.