Online Social Optimization
January 2nd, 2012

More about the phonedog debacle..

Phonedog’s attempt to put a value on Twitter followers could well backfire. No one particularly cares to hear that they’re worth $2.50, even if that is well above the going rate. The site’s Facebook wall is already filling up with comments to that effect. “I just unfollowed you guys on Twitter,” writes one commenter. “You can put my $2.50 directly in my PayPal account.”

http://mashable.com/2011/12/30/twitter-follower-lawsuit-noah-kravitz/

by unruh | Posted in identity management | Comments Off | Tags:
May 31st, 2011

Google, Bing, Facebook & Twitter Promote Big Brands

There is an illusion that social media is significantly different because messages from friends are mixed in with the other stuff. However, when you look at the aggregate trends, ultimately social media pushes the same stuff that the mainstream media pushes (which is the same stuff that post-Panda Google pushes).

http://www.seobook.com/search-as-a-verb

by publcindividual | Posted in identity management, Interstitial Spaces | Comments Off |
April 13th, 2011

Don’t eat your face by being an asshat.

image

http://findusonfacebook.tumblr.com/

Excellent tumblr blog above written by @ABlakeley which provides valuable clues on not being an asshat with your social media assets. Think carefully about relying on one social media third party network to be your primary replacement microsite though because when the site trends into a demographic you aren’t optimizing for, the results will only seem funny to others. (Thanks to the seemingly omnipresent @briansolis for pointing this out in a tweet earlier this morning.)

Attached is a rough beginning to the mind map I’m building, related in a parallel way to the link above.

September 2nd, 2010

Why bother constructing identity online?

I asked the following question on twitter, and I’ll share the responses:

“if your twitter name isn’t your real name, why did you choose it?”

I was curious what kind of answers I would get. One was a single word, or should I say hashtag, @Brainwise’s ‘#Anagram’…

Another response led me to an entry where someone else had asked this same question regarding screen names.

Other great responses:

“..first name is what my dad wanted to call me, second name is a nickname I acquired about 20 years ago..”

“..My last name is Moon, and the obverse of a coin is the front, or “heads”, side. So Lunar Obverse is my public face…”

“cuz I didn’t want the whole world to know who I am…”

“it was mike_mccoy79. i thought notgroundlevel sounded cooler. also, it make me “feel” smarter then others…”

“I chose my twittername because it sounded “cute” to me at the time. Regret it now, sounds stupid & slightly sexual.”

I have to say, of the responses, the one I most identify with personally is Nysidra’s: “Nysidra is my Internet name. That’s almost the same as a “real” name, ja?”

Rocketjam takes it to another level, having spent a lot of time developing a kind of personal brand around his online presence slash “..twitter name…online identity thing” provided a link to his FAQ detailing where his name arose and what he does online.

So I titled this post, why bother constructing identity online? I think the answer is first, that it is fun – identity tourism is a kind of theatrical performance, and speaking through a mask provides a kind of empowerment. However, quickly that mask becomes an extension of the ego, a kind of armament of the id even. That is possibly the most important secondary reason – it provides a kind of personal narrative for internal dialogue – and a way to accrue presence in a social space without the physical restrictions that govern meatspace. I don’t dare attempt to tie any sort of trends to this kind of anecdotal sampling, but I do think the way that identity is deliberately constructed an endlessly fascinating area of research.

« Older Entries













Powered by Wordpress using the theme bbv1