Written on October 1, 2008 – 11:00 am
David Petherick, Contributing Editor, United Kingdom
Twellow, the ‘yellow pages for Twitter‘, has extended its usefulness with the ability to create your own biography entry of up to 2,000 characters.
As well as being able to claim your twitter profile, and classify yourself in up to 10 categories (although I’m in 14 for some reason), you can also add your social media links to your profiles on Pownce, LinkedIn, Flickr, FriendFeed, etcetera - and now add more details about yourself in a mini-profile or biography.
The search facility in Twellow can also reach into your brief summary to pick up keywords and links used there, and your biography information can also include basic HTML, so links and visual formatting can be added. The summary is indexed in search - the biography does not appear to be indexed yet.
Apart from being a great way to find people using Twitter with similar interests, and pinpointing interesting people to follow, categorized Twellow profiles are also becoming visible in Google and Yahoo searches. So I’d recommend making sure you claim your profile at Twellow and add your details and social links to ensure your online visibility and credibility stay high.
I hope you like that post!
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Written on September 8, 2008 – 11:28 am
Ernst-Jan Pfauth, editor in chief
Your online reputation is as valuable as your offline one. You can be almost unknown in real life (is that term even relevant anymore?), but live the life of a social media rockstar online. Like Mika from Dosh Dosh, the anonymous Canadian philosophy student who runs one of the world’s most successful blogs.
Anyway, I have to get to my point here. Since the online identity thing is immensely popular now, apps and tools to maintain this holy grail have been popping up everywhere the last few years. Some are million-dollar companies now, others waste away in loneliness. There are even companies that just got started, like RealMee, which closed its series A in funding last week. A booming industry of success and suck.
Bronson Taylor has the antidote for the hype
Another philosophy student, this time a British one, has given a nice twist to this ID business. He has created a really simple app which summarizes your online identity in 22 elements. MeeID consists of:
- a headline
- a photo
- ten lines (which can be links)
- ten links to your favorites (upper right corner)
That’s all there is to it. It’s a refreshing approach to social network profiles, as you have to make a tough selection of the tons of info you’re used to puting up on a page like this. To make it even harder for you, Bronson also suggests a kabilion other ways of using MeeID. Do it David Letterman-style (top 10 list) or the Git-R-Done way (a to do list). Whatever you want from MeeID, go for it. The site now has 485 users, but deserves more. Not necessarily as tool, but more like a statement.
Written on January 2, 2008 – 6:59 pm
Ernst-Jan Pfauth, editor in chief
“Could open-source blogging platform WordPress serve as your next social networking profile?”. With that question, Anne Zelenka started a post on GigaOM that created a fairly big buzz in the blogosphere (143 comments and trackback plus 541 diggs). She wrote about DiSO, a project that by using OpenID as an identifier and Wordpress as publishing platform wants to “build a social network with its skin inside out.” With some sophisticated blogroll-related plugins, bloggers would be able to build a social networking place that’s customizable to the max, since it’s their own place. It’s an idea by Chris Messina, co-founder of Citizen Agency.
It sounds like a great idea, especially now everybody seems to look for ways to connect their abundance of social services. Remember what Marc Canter said in Paris on Le Web 3: ‘We ALL want social systems that DO connect with other social systems.
However, Zelenka added a critical remark in her post, stating that not everybody wants one place to present their digital identity. Some people prefer several places to present themselves in different ways for different audiences.
I believe that DiSO might get popular, but I doubt whether it will get picked up on a massive scale. It seems like a nice tool for the geeky crowd out there. The ones that actually care about their on-line identity and think outside the borders of their group of friends and acquaintances. Who already have a well-styled and written personal blog. For them it’s a nice extra.
For the large audience however, it’s just a little too complicated. Yet for them, there are also interesting blog tools emerging. Tools that make blogging more accessible and look better than the old-fashioned Blogger.com design. Have a look at Blogonize for example. It’s basically an AJAXified blogging platform that makes it easier for users to create ‘one heck of a blog’ and thus might stimulate a huge crowd to finally start blogging.
Tumblr also fits perfectly into the trend. Ok, it’s not 100% blogging, but it sure looks like it. They say that when blogs are journals, tumblelogs are scrapbooks. It’s another easy way for users to easily share what they create and find on the web, in a gorgeous way.
So yes, blogging will get more popular for the normal users, since it’s a way for them to present themselves in a more personal way. But the process of installing a blog on a server and activating plugins is just a little too much to ask from them. Or will the guys from DiSo find a more accessible way to create the so-wanted personal social networkingtool?
Tip: Read this inspiring article by Hugh MacLeod in which he explains why he prefers blogging over social networks.
Written on July 19, 2007 – 4:52 pm
Patrick de Laive, Internet entrepreneur and co-founder of Fleck
Dick Hardt, the CEO of Identity2.0 company Sxipper gave an amazing presentation about the future of online identity. He has a great presentation style and did 804 slides in 29 minutes and 4 seconds! It is not only a very good presentation but he addresses a very interesting field for the future of the web as well; our online identity. It is a very popular topic at the moment (think of OpenID).
Thanks Dick for this great performance and for inspiring us!
enjoy
Keynote: Dick Hardt - The Next Identity, the Hardt Way (more…)
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The Next Web Blog is closely associated with The Next Web Conference which is held annually in Amsterdam, The Netherlands. At this event speakers from all over the world come together to talk about, and show of, the future of the Web. (
