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September 01, 2007

Creating a respectable online identity

The fact that most of us now join and use social networks (e.g. Facebook), metaverses (e.g. SecondLife), and a realm of communication (e.g. Twitter) and sharing (e.g. Youtube and Flickr) tools means we are establishing an online identity; largely unintended. And how much this identity is congruent with our real identity is even another question.

Nevertheless you would want that identity to be respectable. To what degree and by whom is open for discussion, but it's at least handy to have an overview of your 'identifiers' and be aware of the current online values. An example of the first is the 'Universe of rapper 50cent', where it is also evident that creating an (online) identity can be a business in itself. One of his 'identifiers' is his avatar in a metaverse called Faketown:

50 Cent avatar

An example of the current online values is harder to find, but the existence of companies like 'Reputationdefender' and 'Defendmyname' that 'cleanup' your online reputation says enough (see also the privacy marketplace discussion I joined on Freedomlab).

Another way to visualize your online identity is creating a so-called 'Lifestream' (with tools like Tumblr), which aggregates all your online expressions. If it can be enhanced to include archives of e.g. your various backgrounds and icons over time on Twitter it could be like a continuous 'time vault'.

Posted by Almar at September 1, 2007 04:52 PM



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