The Web Version of You

Chris, you've read my mind again. Of course, it may not be all that hard :) Anyway we've (collectively) commented on how fragmented and confusing new media applications can be for newbies, business folks and even those of us who have been hanging out on the net for awhile. This is a great list. I've got some clients who should be aware of what can happen to brands and reputations when they can't control the conversation. Many thanks - Peter.

I think what comes next is the true digital business card - something that easily bridges the digital and physical space to share this great collection of information about who I am.

I am a newbie and feel overwhelmed when trying to manage my web site, blogs, twitter, picasso,facebook,LinkIn--It seems to me like I can use friendfeed as a kind of index. Is it appropriate to put under my signiture line as the on-line place client can keep up to date with my camp news?

Is this another step toward a truly semantic version of the web? FriendFeed does seem to create a Pangaea of all the media I create, syndicate, advocate. If nothing else, it's simplified the task of media consumption from those whose output I value.

@kathybeth - I think another solution would be Lijit. If you swing by [chrisbrogan.com] and look at my far right sidebar, beneath the black "MyBlogLog" thing, there's a part with a search bar and says "My Content." That's Lijit.

That's an easy widget for people to see all the places where you contribute.

FriendFeed is more that+ a conversation.

In fact, where's Micah. How do YOU explain how FriendFeed and Lijit are different?

The one application I notice is missing is Utterz :)

I just started using FriendFeed a few days ago. I'm in love. It's a passive way to allow friends to know what you know. It's sharing time on steroids. Sure, none of my friends use it yet... but in time.

What's next for it? That's what could/should be interesting. It's pretty limitless, really.

I think there is an overkill point and a point where the quantity of information puts pressure on people to use a middleman program like this. Sometimes a blogpost is best read in situ, surrounded by the trappings of the author to put things in context!

Right here, Chris! Where most people are each morning, reading your blog, and the comments.

Friendfeed is a wonderful service, which is known as a social aggregator, and is, by definition a destination where you can go and see the collected feed information for you and your friends. It has a great search functionality, and it pretty much real time.

Lijit is not a desination site. Think of Lijit as a filter for all the information that FriendFeed collects. So, with Chris, for example, his Lijit Network consists of his blog, his online content (like friendfeed), and a list of other trusted sources (some are other Lijit users and some are not). So, if I wanted to know what Chris has written about "personal branding," I could do that search in the Lijit search box on the left side of Chris' blog, and the results would return posts that Chris has written, but also posts from Dan Schawbel's personalbrandingblog.wordpress.com.

Do I know Dan? Nope. But, because Dan is connected to Chris, my trust in Chris is transferred to this result. I have now discovered new content that I may not have found otherwise.

And, its that application of trust, plus the fact that Lijit is a publisher plugin versus a destination site, that, IMHO, makes the two services highly complementary, but different.

Hope that helps, Feel free to email me at micah [at] lijit [dot] com if you have more questions.

How about public profile pages that incorporate one's own aggregated stream of content and their consolidated online identity? Here's mine: http://johnmccrea.myplaxo.com/

FriendFeed is intriguing and I'm definitely looking into seeing if it's a tool to enhance my social media profile that I have hand coded myself on my website.

Hmmmm...the very idea of FriendFeed makes me nervous - it assumes that I want to share everything with everyone...and maybe I'm old fashioned but I just don't. I don't want to share my wedding pictures on Flickr with business associates and most of my friends are not all that interested in my LinkedIn connections. I share different content with different circles for a reason - mostly because of what the different circles really care about. Community is contextual. Not that I am anti-FriendFeed but unless I can filter, I am actually not interested in aggregating.

Chris,

I was just discussing with a partner today about how the term "social media" is now being more actively used in a business context. Companies see the kind of image that you have posted, and they say, "ok, what should we do next?"

I actually posted one that relates very closely to this on my (new) blog last night that you may find interesting. Of course, the risk with putting an image like this together yourself is knowing that you certainly left something critical out! http://www.vistrata.com/read/social-media-touch...

Chris.. How about your wiki user page?? and Talk page?? some people make a lot of edits and help out with the wikipedia project..

What about ClaimID or OpenID 'about me' RSS Feeds? Yes it can be an RSS feed.. but make it look different. If you can say THIS IS ABOUT ME! or I HAVE NOTHING TO DO WITH THIS.. sometimes people may do a search for you online, and find stuff that is not you.

Also FF should have an editable profile page! Not too much, but some info you could add. To be fair, it really should point to your Blogs About page... but still maybe a useful feature

@Jez - really great points. There isn't much "claim dispute" here on the ole web. Hmmm, now that you mention it.

I've been reading your blog for sometime, all great content and interesting material. I think the whole area of how you appear online and your digital presence is gaining relevance and takes another leap toward being able to measure the social web and the impact of social media communications for brands and business globally. Since it all starts with individuals, it makes sense that most development is in this area and I welcome more tools and ideas of this kind - have you seen QDOS (www.qdos.com) for another slant..?

Chris, all,

Friendfinder is a great tool, indeed. To give the discussion a twist; we are working on another platform for the 'webversion of you' focusing on displaying your EXPERTISE to the world, on any topic. Check out www.gemzies.com, and a example 'webversion of you'-profile on http://www.gemzies.com/show/member_283/Ben_Licher. Thanks on forehand for your feedback!

I don't know the answers yet, but Nathan Burke had some interesting questions regarding FriendFeed and being authentic online. He wonders if it's even possible and if presence management isn't called for.

Some great questions: http://blogstring.com/2008/03/26/dramaturgical-...

Finally, after 15 years of surfing, collecting and making up schemes in spreadsheets, joining delicious and whots not for my favorites, sites I wanted to revisit or share, trying modules, widgets and so on. I learned about www.gemzies.com through the Dutch Press and joined. Some tweaking to do on Gemzies but I go to my own Gemzie pages now if I want to read/see something on a subject. I'm an Internettual and my INQ (InterNetQuotient) is 293 (links added to Gemzies). More to go.