Online identity - evolve

Once that online identity has been pushed out into the blogosphere it has entered the public realm and becomes public property. Online communities will subsequently ensnare and/or entice you, and your identity will evolve in response to the communities you associate with. Community association occurs on different levels: linking, lurking, active participation (commenting). Don't forget that we are social animals - but our socialness is not restricted to F2F. Online we lurk, link and comment, with the F2F equivalents being respectively: listen, acknowledge and reply.

An online identity is fed by a multifarious interest set. Weblogs project your personality, and extend your identity by the connections that you make with communities who share your interests. The tentacles of your interests reach out to these communities, and likewise their tentacles reach out to you. A blogger can be enticed by an interest community i.e. post comments on, or link to weblogs in the community in the hope that they reciprocate. Or a blogger can be ensnared, when the community finds him... and comments on or links to his weblog.

I mentioned that social-software can attempt to recommend people who share the same interests as you. Whilst it is initially exciting to be identified by a member of the same tribe, it can become unmanageable if your inbox or comments field is over-run with these introductions. It feels like a succession of first dates... the same intoned small talk, comments, questions. The blogosphere is discerning, and the banal is deleted or unresponded to. My point being that your attempt to join an interest community may be thwarted if you fail to meet their standards. The centre of control, after all, remains with the community.

[tag: identity]