What the internet needs next is a new locus of identity. For better or for ill our identity online is concentrated in our email addresses and our facebook. Our email addresses are the one consistent account that carries over most platforms we interact with online. Facebook is the reigning - and from what I can see only realistic - platform of totalising social media. What I mean is, facebook is the social media platform that claims to incorporate everything: messaging, photos, videos, relationships, discussion pages, publication of content, news, games, apps, etc., etc. Facebook, lets be honest, is where we post more about ourselves than anywhere else online. Other social media platforms dont even pretend to do what facebook does, they all occupy single function niche aspects of new media: instagram just takes photos, tumblr just blogs, vine just takes short videos, etc., etc. And, they all feed back into facebook -- think how often these different social media sites land content on your newsfeed. What facebook provides is a way to be yourself online. Your email address provides a way to be consistently you online - though not necessarily yourself. The challenge is how we synthesise these online. Who can make, and have take (i.e. made popular) a way of maintaining a persistent identity across the web, that still allows for pseudonymity? That seems to be the next challenge of the online landscape.
Posted on: Thu, 07 Aug 2014 00:18:10 +0000
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