BPN 1582 Closing my Hyves account

Today I closed my Dutch Hyves social network account. And today Vinton Cerf warns for walled gardens in the Guardian.

In 2007,  I had a long discussion with Xenia Maren Menzies (hi Xenia, do you remember) about the durability of FB. I told her to have an exit strategy in case FB would go bankrupt or in case you had enough of it or, in the worst case, you would die. Who would close the account, was the question. And now social networks are working on their own way to extinction. And that strategy is called: walled garden.

The term walled garden was often used in connection with AOL around 2000. AOL had started out as a consumer online organisation and had survived consumer services like The Source, Trintex and Delphi. By 2000 AOL had a strategy of keeping consumers in their garden. So they started to cooperate with all kind of news and game companies with the slogan: we are your one-stop shop. The social networks go into the same direction now. BUT I DO NOT WANT A ONE WAY SHOP.

So start reading the Guardian article Google evangelist warns Facebook could be the next AOL or IBM. The Google evangelist is Vinton Cerf who says Facebook's closed model risks it becoming a 'walled garden' unconnected from other networks and websites. On my FB page this link was offered by Professor Melissa Lee Price and also linked by Gyorgyi Retfalvi.

The article appears on the day that I have closed my Hyves social media page. Hyves is a Dutch social network, which is presently belonging to De Telegraaf. This newspaper publishing company bought the social network, when it was really over its commercial top. And presently it is panting and trying to catch up with other networks. Today Hyves launched a major overhaul, which prompted me to look at Hyves in general and to the persons profiles I link to. Then I compared the two networks and the list of profiles and noticed that I could find the profiles also on FB. So what was the extra on Hyves: a walled garden of a newspaper company? I decided that it was time to close my Hyves account and I did. I must compliment Hyves on this clean closing-off procedure.

BPN 1582