The end of multiple identities online?
At Barcamp Brighton 2 last weekend I hosted a discussion group around the future of social networks. Some interesting themes came up around decentralised/portable networks. I gave the group this statement to discuss: “In the future, users will have just one profile page for all of their social networks”. This is a central idea behind portable social networks: Users have their own domain name which hosts their personal profile, and this is used for all of their social networks (so no more having to enter all of your personal details and uploading a photo each time you join a new service.)
Someone (I think it was Aral) said that many of us like to maintain multiple identies online: We have a different persona whether we’re hanging out on myspace, LinkedIn, Facebook or Dopplr, so although having a single profile would be convenient, it’s doesn’t necessarily reflect how we want to express outselves.
My personal experience is that my online personas are starting to merge into one: I have a more relaxed, informal profile in business-related contexts, and my Facebook profile avoids anything too outrageous. I don’t know about you, but I obsessively de-tag myself from the ‘messier’ pictures from nights out with friends.
So, is there a risk that our online identities will become a watered-down, lowest common denominator of the various sides of our personalities and lives? A persona that you don’t mind your boss, your mother or your best mate seeing? Or will we find ways to express all of the different sides of ourselves? Let me know what you think.
By the way, if you were at the discussion, ping me on Twitter, it would be cool to stay in touch.
Tom wrote this on 20.03.08 –
It's filed in the Events & conferences, Social media, Social networks box
On March 27th, 2008 at 2:34 pm, Biff responded:
It’s true that we have different personas. This is a natural thing, as we mean different things to different people, or groups of people.
That’s been one of the main things we’ve kept at the top of the page all through the development of Naked, aiming to create a space where you can be yourself, really be yourself, with the people close to you.
One thing I keep thinking is that all of this is very new. When new things come to the fold the tendency is to take them as far as they will go. I think in the coming months/years people will reach their own personal limits, and start tracing their steps back to where they were most comfortable.
It’s interesting to watch!