Early Show
Early Show
How to Delete Your Ex From Your Online Life
Delete key on computer keyboard; Getty Images
Breaking up may be hard to do in the real world, but it could be even harder online.
If you stay friends with your significant other on Facebook or he or she keeps tweeting you, or you're digitally in touch in other ways, it makes completely cutting ties that much tougher.
But there are websites and apps to help you disconnect from an ex who just won't go away online, says AOL Consumer Adviser Regina Lewis, who spelled out how to point, click, purge, on "The Early Show on Saturday Morning."
Can't stop thinking about your "ex" and find yourself obsessively checking up on him or her online … or stumbling into postings about them on friends' Facebook pages? A new browser plug-in enables the heartbroken to effectively erase their exes from their cyber life.
Go to BlockYourEx.com and type in the names and social networking usernames of up to five exes, and install the blocker to make every online image and mention of them disappear. The blocker works for Facebook, Twitter, in Google search results and more. It takes only a matter of seconds to download and is compatible with most Web browsers (Internet Explorer, Firefox, Google Chrome).
Your ex has no way of knowing you've installed the "Ex-Blocker." And, should you reconcile, it's quick and easy to uninstall!
So far, it's been downloaded over 5,000 times in the one month it's been live.
EraseUrX iPhone App (99 cents)
That's it! Relationship over! Erase 'em from your life, which these days means to X them from your phone. But what's the fun in just erasing your X without rubbing it in their face a little? Yes, there's an app for that! The EraseUrX iPhone app will help you create an e-mail, send a screw-you photo from your library or camera, or record your own voice message.
Then it will erase their number from your phone - let's face it, that's the hardest part!
Breaking up may be easier to do if you hire someone else to do it for you. For a fee, someone from iDump4U.com will call your partner and break it off. Fill out a simple form on the site, make a payment, and within 24 hours, the deed will be done.
From iDump4U.com:
iDUMP4U takes the messiness out of any breakup. We collect the information about the person you want to break up with, and do the work for you. Since we have no emotional ties to the person, we can do it as honestly, and truthfully as possible..
$10 For A Basic Breakup
So you met some person online or at a club and you had a few good times, and now you want to get rid of them. Or you met someone else and you just want to let your old flame go. That is what the $10 plan does.
$25 For an Engagement Breakup
So you have cold feet? You could skip the country and fake a kidnapping… but look what happened to the "Runaway Bride" it seems like $25 is so much better than thousands of dollars in civil costs.
$50 for a Divorce Call
Sometimes you need someone else to help you start a divorce. We can't hand your spouse the papers, or legally finalize the divorce, however we can help you get the awkward moment started…
Location-aware social networking apps promise to make it easy not just to discover where your pals are hanging out, but to meet new ones, too. One such app for the iPhone and Blackberry is the ultra-popular "Foursquare." Foursquare is only one year old, but already has more than 2 million users. It was devised as a kind of online game played out in real locations, as determined by your mobile phone's GPS. Once you've registered, you "check in" to buildings and even places within them, and your profile can be viewed along with any comments you want to be seen by anyone named as a Foursquare friend.
Foursquare is hugely popular in the U.S. - so much so that a backlash has begun. Avoidr is a website that enables you to follow your Foursquare friends, then identify the places they aren't checked into. Jesper Andersen, of San Francisco, designed the site after seeing couples he knew split up. "It was an emotionally resonant feeling - you don't actually want to go to this bar because your ex is there," he says. "Social networks should take into account that friendships ebb and flow."
Someone ending an engagement or marriage can sell or auction off his or her your engagement ring and other jewelry on IDoNowIDont.com. Mara Opperman, cofounder of the site, says its average transaction price is $2,500, usually 30 to 60 percent below retail, so it can also be a place for those planning an engagement to snag a deal on a ring. The site is full of interesting back stories detailing relationships gone bad.
Copyright 2010 CBS. All rights reserved.