Thursday 27 May 2010

Facebook privacy scares

The Facebook news stories make me smile. If I don't want people to know my personal info, I don't shovel it up onto the web!

The only websites that get accurate date of birth and address info from me are the corporate ones - online banking, eBay, PayPay and similar. Further down the pecking order, the accuracy diminishes severely. I just can't understand why people trust sites like Facebook and then start whining when there's security breaches or identity theft.

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Friday 14 May 2010

An update on some of the crossdresser sites or crossdresser + gay sites I visit... who's mad, and who's just bad?

MSO (MaleShowOffs.com)

After much disruption in March, during a change of site admin, the original owner took up the reins again after contribution and visitor numbers collapsed. Now, a new rash of category deletions and changes has started, prompting one friend to tell me that the owner is "doing the same silly **** that the other guy did. I am about to give up on it all together!"

I know just how he feels, and it's debatable when I'll next bother to log in.

NBN (NewBudNudes.com)

By way of contrast, NBN almost never changes. And that includes the "weekly" poll on its front page, which hasn't changed for many months! While many of us gripe, or regard the site as a moribund joke, many of us do feel settled there.

The owners give the impression they couldn't care less about us (a recurring theme in the forums) but at least there's stability. I'd rather have the neglectful predictability of NBN than the erratic mess that is MSO. And I even pay for it: three-year membership!

Pix and video, and blogging... and a rudimentary forum and chatroom. The forum's a bit alarming: no-one except moderators can edit or delete stuff that's posted. So don't use it while drunk!

TRANZGIRLS

This used to be trannyrepublic.com but now the site is at http://tranzgirls.com and offers a mix of galleries and groups - that's Flickr-style groups of themed pics. The site is aimed at being an alternative to - or better than - tvChix, and certainly the bitchiness and "clique" feel of tvChix is thankfully absent.

On the down side, pic thumbnails aren't proportioned correctly and contributors who get membership promotion for contributions can unexpectedly get demoted later on. Of course, if the membership enhancement wasn't paid for then one can't really complain... but it would be nice to have a bit of transparancy in the matter.

CELECTION

Celection gives a membership upgrade if your contributions (pix, comments, etc) hit a certain target in a certain period. The numbers can be seen by everyone, so it's easy to distinguish regular participants from casual or lapsed users.

One unusual feature is the ability to set a new "challenge" or theme, inviting others to post pix that match the specified theme. The creator of the challenge then gets to judge the entries when the contest closes. One current challenge is "Best Ass in Blue Jeans" but, annoyingly, is only open to women.

YuVuTu

Video-posting site. Submissions have to be approved before they are displayed, but most people will want to view stuff rather than post - and that can be done for free. The site restriction annoys me, but it needn't worry the casual surfer.

FLICKR

I stopped using Flickr last year, because of their erratic policy towards what's acceptable content and how it should be graded. Trouble is, their site model combines adult porn with family-safe viewing, and that's a fraught mix. There's bound to be problems, really.

XTUBE

My second-fav video site. Free viewing, but uploads can take 72 hours to process. That needn't worry most viewers, of course.

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Found any other site you like or dislike? Why not tell us about them in the comments section below? Anonymous commenting is currently enabled.

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