There’s a good chance that you’ve signed up for several online accounts, and now you have several different online identities (user names, passwords, and search and purchasing histories). If you use social media tools like LinkedIn or Facebook, Flickr, and Twitter (there are so many more!), you probably spend time socializing and sharing information online every day. One person, many identities. That can be a problem.
Jeremiah Owyang’s post (about a Forrester report) Future of the Social Web, in Five Eras states that:
Today’s social experience is disjointed because consumers have separate identities in each social network they visit. A simple set of technologies that enable a portable identity will soon empower consumers to bring their identities with them — transforming marketing, eCommerce, CRM, and advertising. IDs are just the beginning of this transformation, in which the Web will evolve step by step from separate social sites into a shared social experience. Consumers will rely on their peers as they make online decisions, whether or not brands choose to participate. Socially connected consumers will strengthen communities and shift power away from brands and CRM systems; eventually this will result in empowered communities defining the next generation of products.
I’m particularly interested in one of Owyang’s Five Eras of the Social Web:
4) Era of Social Context: Personalized and accurate content
There is a lot of work being done in this area, giving the power to centrally control and keep accurate information about ourselves. One name for it is “user-driven services.” I’ll be writing more on this very empowering concept in posts to come.
Coaching moment: if you were to collect all of your information in one place then selectively share some of it with various online services, what would that look like? Think about all of the data (searches, emails, tweets, posts, etc.) that you’ve generated this week. Which ones are you happy to share with the public forever? If not everything, what would you protect, for how long, and why?