Who Are You
Who are you? Who am I? I intuitively know the answers to these questions - I'm me, you're you - but how does that intuition translate online?
Social Networking
I have about 140 friends on Facebook, a number slightly more than average, which I find surprising (I'm of a 'certain age' and I don't think I'm all that promiscuous). Using the TouchGraph Photos application, I can see my social graph:
Each of those 140 or so nodes knows me in some manner. Many of them I know from the offline world - I drank beer with them last week or drank chocolate milk with them yesteryear. Some of them (the blue nodes at the bottom), I "imported" from some online photography activities. The point is that I have a relationship with each of my nodes outside of Facebook. Ask any of them if they know "Brent Schneeman" and they are likely to look around nervously and then look for the nearest exit. After that, they'll likely admit that they have some relationship with me. My social graph connects to my real world, and I suspect than many social graphs do the same.
My Twitter social graph looks a bit different:
I tend to not use Twitter all that much - I can't quite figure it out. But there it is. I get the feeling that Facebook is more conversational in nature - relationships are maintained - where Twitter is more unidirectional - a status is sent an people may or may not read it. Conversations happen on Twitter, but I find Facebook more natural. That said, my Twitter account represents me in some way.
Financial Services
In addition to social networking, I actually shop online. I use PayPal frequently (disclosure - they employ me) and maintain an active account there. I am a Verified User, which means that I've added a bank account to the service. This "increase[s] trust and safety in [the PayPal] community" since "financial institutions screen their account holders". I actually have two financial instruments associated with PayPal: the aforementioned bank account and a credit card. I like to think that define my identify with PayPal by use of a "security key" (login required), a little device that I carry around which is required to access my account. I don't know if that actually helps with my identity, but since I'm the only one with my key, it seems like it does.
Who Am I?
I'm not sure if social networking or financial services provide the more authoritative answer to my online identity. Currently, it seems as if the financial identity is more trustworthy, as it is grounded in actual "real-world" financial instruments. But that's not the only way my identity works in the the physical world. Sure, social security numbers, bank accounts, etc are all help to legally establish my identity. However, I am also some guy who invites neighbors over, coaches basketball, drinks beer with friends, ... - "who I am" has a social component.
Facebook and Twitter certainly know this. I suspect that they are working on mechanisms to provide "Identity Scores" based on social graphs. My score would essentially be composed of 140 people saying "yeah, that's Brent". As I pointed out, I have relationships established with most of those people outside of Facebook, which could be a component of the Identity Score, if it could somehow be measured.
Can these two approaches to Identity (e.g. social, financial) be merged somehow? Maybe via something like OpenID? That seems like a idea worth exploring - one Identity merging many. I know of one attempt to establish Identity based on reputation - maybe my Whuffie Bank balance becomes my (social) Identity Score.
Who am I? I'm not sure.
Posted at 11:29AM Feb 15, 2010 by schnee in General |