What do Avatars Mean to Us
Our blogs, Twitter, Flickr, and all these places where we leave a bit of our social identity behind all offer yet another chance to upload a picture to represent us in this space. It’s the classic game Monopoly played out over and over and over. You want to be the thimble? No, I’m the car. Who gets the top hat? Only now, we can use pictures of ourselves. And this is revealing.
Changing our computers, our desktops, our online spaces is important to us. Customization and personalization are important. And as part of this, our icon, our avatar, our little square to show who we are matters too.
Some people use graphics. Others use symbols that represent something important to them. Some use pictures of themselves, and change them out frequently. Others have used the same picture everywhere for years.
And here’s a really interesting detail that came out in the conversations: what we choose as an avatar seems to relate to our self-image, our self-esteem, and what we think about when we look in the mirror.
I asked a few questions on Twitter about it, and got some interesting responses. I want to keep asking the question here:
What does your avatar mean to you? Do you change it often (on whatever services require one)? Do you use a picture of yourself or something else? Talk about avatars and what they mean to you in the comments, if you will. Talk about your online identity and how icons and avatars play into it.
Curious to hear your thoughts.
Credit Cards for Reputation
Credit cards are plastic representations of currency. Currency is an abstract representation of the amount of effort you expend in a given period of time. Simply, when you work, you get paid (one hopes), and you exchange that effort of your labors for other things through this thing called money. Credit cards are just an easier way to move money between two points.
I believe that reputation, or the abstraction of it online, deserves a kind of credit card. I want some digital representation of who I am (identity), who I know (social graph), and what people think about me (reputation) to exist in some format.
Why can’t it? Because it’s a very subjective thing, reputation.
And yet, eBay has reputation as a system. LinkedIn has elements of reputation in their system. There are abstractions already happening in this space.
I want my card.
How about you?
The Social Media 100 is a project by Chris Brogan dedicated to writing 100 useful blog posts in a row about the tools, techniques, and strategies behind using social media for your business, your organization, or your own personal interests. Swing by [chrisbrogan.com] for more posts in the series, and if you have topic ideas, feel free to share them, as this is a group project, and your opinion matters.
Get the entire series by subscribing to this blog, and subscribe to my free newsletter here.
Photo credit, The Consumerist
Facebook Could Get Really Creepy
Disclaimer: part of me thinks this video is a little bit of “Do you think your food is safe? Think again! Film at 11!”, and yet, another part of me thinks this is all really worth considering further. It relates a bit to my post about Facebook’s use of the Social Graph data from the other day.
What do YOU think?
Hat tip to Pamela Rosenthal, a Boston area community specialist you should get to know.
Question about OpenID
Falling into the category of “you’re smarter than me,” I have a question for those of you who know anything/much/lots about OpenID. As you can see in the illustration, I’ve chosen to use the Wordpress.com installation of OpenID. I tied it to my Wordpress.com account and have so far used it in only two places. I’m thinking that every time I offer up an OpenID, I’ll point to that one. So far so good, right? ( To get up to speed on OpenID, go here).
What happens if Wordpress.com folds? What happens if they change their mind and start charging me, or I leave them for someone else, or whatever? By choosing Wordpress.com (or Yahoo.com, or anyone.com) as my OpenID host/provider/whatever you call it, what happens to my ID should I choose to move it?
What do you know/think?
