I am on the web from 2001, starting with my first Yahoo account. I managed a forum of 500+ members from 2004 and I’ve been blogging on what used to be My Opera since 2006 until its closure, then I moved to WordPress where I’ve recently reached 10 years of membership and almost 700 followers. I have written literally thousands of posts. When Vivaldi emerged, I was one of its first members, and this blog continues the tradition of blogging, even if I maintain in parallel my WordPress blog and a Substack. As for social media, I’m both on Facebook and LinkedIn since 2008, which is an awful lot of time. I’m not on my first Twitter account (I deleted the first one because I didn’t see its utility at that time) and I’m also on Pinterest primarily because it is useful for sharing my photos. To this we can add a myriad of other accounts on various social media websites that didn’t stand the test of time. More recently, I took an interest in Vivaldi Social (Mastodon). For internet standards and for someone who is not working in the tech or communication fields, I have seen a lot.

One question might arise: Why social media?

The answer is a mix of curiosity to encounter new people, desire to share my writing and photography, but also willingness to expand beyond my physical limitations of living in Europe. And here comes another question: How?

The social media accounts were always free; they were paid with my attention by advertisers willing to show their products. But in the early years the emphasis was on mutual interaction and exchange, such as forums and groups, and less on “how to earn more money online”. Then the entire thing has degenerated in what we see today, including paid advertisement and SEO so as to index the blogs more efficiently. The consequence was only one: alienation. I still keep some form of connection with some old friends on Facebook (friends from the time when the internet was different and we got to know each other fairly well), I have only one connection on Twitter (belonging, again, to a different era), I have no feedback from LinkedIn although it has by far the biggest number of connections, and my blogs on Vivaldi and WordPress are silent almost all the time. The recent Substack has some movement, but mostly from people who already knew me from WordPress. In other words, the connections I made before the current social media era are the only ones that matter; nothing has happened during the last – let’s say – 7 years. And this brings me to the title of this article.

Nobody wants to write in vain. Nobody wants to take photos and share them in the void. If it were different, there are personal diaries and personal photo galleries. In a horizontal world where you have to compete with millions others, your voice (or social media profiles) can’t be heard (seen). And since Google and the other social media giants have begun to use algorithms for showing relevant stuff (relevant for their financial gain but damaging for my own interest), I was faced with 2 options: retreat or expand as far as possible.

I am presently forced to maintain a huge social media presence so as to be sure that what I write and the photos I share can be seen by as many people as possible, including those close friends I like to be in contact with. And I know where my traffic comes from because I use Substack which has an efficient tracking system. I know that Twitter is completely dead, I know that Facebook is at about 2% and LinkedIn at about 1%. I also know that Vivaldi Social is almost zero (despite the number of followers and the lack of algorithms) because it’s the newest account and has less than 1 year. What is surprising is that WordPress is also dead. And the most active of all remains… the blog on Vivaldi, which provides also traffic to the rest of my social accounts, including to Substack at about 6%. Yes, it’s hard to believe…

What complicates the social media landscape more is the fact that big tech companies are fighting each other. The one that makes the biggest noise is Twitter (or X, as it brands itself today). For instance, the Substack images are still blocked and the links are clearly delayed on Twitter. But on the other hand, Twitter has the most interesting people, so I can’t close it. Then, Facebook is not the friendliest place, as I was temporarily banned last week for… harvesting information… probably a glitch but also a sign of incompetence. I have my friends on Facebook so I can’t close it either. Then it’s Google, who is quietly indexing my each new article but it’s not showing them, as they are deemed irrelevant. I watch YouTube videos, so I can’t close it as well. And finally, both LinkedIn and Facebook began to show less and less my articles if they are not considered interesting but… how can something become interesting if it’s not shown?!? A big dilemma. Anyway, I can’t close LinkedIn because I might need a professional connection. So, metaphorically speaking, I find myself in a position similar to that of Switzerland: I have many “embassies” in each social media kingdom and I try to find solutions to circumvent the fighting between them while avoiding being completely silenced (I noticed that, when I begin to delete posts or information, the algorithm detects that I feel like leaving the social network and it shows my profile and posts more often so as to prevent me from leaving for good, something I exploit from time to time).

But… is being multiplatform the answer to today’s social media? I mean, I get almost nothing from having such a big online presence. And new friends… well… it’s been ages since my last genuine interaction… With my blog on Vivaldi as my main source of traffic and with the expanding of the idea of Fediverse, at some point my “embassies” will shrink to “consulates” and finally to just… “mail-boxes”…