Microsoft, Yahoo!, Facebook: It’s A Great Time To Be A Mac User

May 19th, 2008

Scoble floats a rumor that Microsoft is on the verge of making some moves that will shift the balance of power on the Internet. Instead of buying Yahoo! outright, they may buy Yahoo!’s search and then acquire Facebook for several billion dollars.

Why would this be a brilliant move? Scoble points out how Facebook is one place on the web where Google spiders don’t crawl. Hence, all that Facebook content, combined with Yahoo! search, would give Microsoft a popular segment of the ‘net that is all theirs.

The dark clouds of doom roll in, but guess what - there is a ray of sunshine, if you’re open to it:

Give up on Microsoft, Yahoo!, and Facebook.

As a Mac user, I’m steadily weaning myself off of Microsoft products. I use OS X, Safari, Firefox, iWork, iTunes, and VLC. That eliminates my need for Windows, Internet Explorer, Microsoft Office, and Windows Media Player. I won’t buy an XBox. I hardly use Yahoo!. And I don’t use Facebook - I recently quit and deleted my account. Life goes on.

Yes, I have been on a tear lately, quitting many services and boycotting others. But there is a reason for this madness. I’m determined to support businesses I believe in. Some are in evidence on this blog: FriendFeed, Disqus, WordPress, Apple, Google. These companies put the user first and are much better at data portability (yes, even Apple). I’m not quitting services willy-nilly.

I have absolutely no regrets for quitting Facebook and if Microsoft gets a hold of that company, that will be more vindication that it was the right thing to do.

If this Microsoft / Facebook thing bugs you - there is a way out - consider getting a Mac (or Linux) and use Google for everything else. Quit your Facebook account before Microsoft gets a hold of your data. We don’t need these companies. I’m totally serious.

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  • The funny thing is -- none of the A-listers has the first farking clue about what's going to happen with MS and Yahoo. They're all talking out of their generously sized behinds.

    Whatever happens it will be interesting.
  • And it seems - whatever happens, Google will still be on top.
  • I really like Microsoft.





    Hahaha had you going for a minute there.
  • Mike
    I'm totally with you here - data portability is way undervalued.

    Switching away from Twitter was an ordeal. I moved my Dad away from Hotmail today, and that was so much more of a hassle than it should have been.

    I'm so sick of companies holding their users hostage. If there's something that can push me off of Facebook, it's that. I've probably said it before, but - I wish there were a better alternative to keeping people connected.
  • Yeah it's tricky. The companies have a vested interest in keeping the data at their site since it's so valuable to advertisers. I think the worm is finally turning though, as users become more educated about the issue.
  • I can't quit Yahoo! completely as I'm beginning to use Upcoming.org now. If there's an alternative, I'll give it a shot. I'm also a little on the fence with Flickr, but since I'm not a shutterbug, I'm leaning more towards not needing it. Facebook, meh. As for MS, until all the PC games I want to play can be installed natively on the Mac, I still gotta use an MS PC. However, for over a year and a half now I've done everything else at home with my MBP and couldn't be happier... until I get to work and have to deal with MS stuff. >_>
  • Totally agree.

    Buying my Mac and quitting Micro$oft forever in 3 weeks ;-) I've been using Ubuntu as a primary OS for almost a month now.
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