Identidad y reputación en la web

Hace un par de meses esbozaba la siguiente idea: el cúmulo de sitios 2.0 que trata de reflejar a una persona en el “online” no es una descripción precisa de la persona. Avatares, actitudes, CVs, comentarios, recomendaciones y fotos no dan certeza. Sólo nos queda –como en una foto borrosa de hace un siglo- una idea vacilante acerca de la persona. En el ámbito profesional, se trata de establecer una “reputación online”; en verdad lo que hay son intentos de mostrarse de forma “laboralmente correcta” –y probablemente aburrida-. En esos posts daba ejemplos de “separadores” entre lo profesional y lo personal, útiles para personalidades eclécticas.

Hace poco leí un artículo de la increíble Tara Hunt de Horse Pig Cow. Ella sabe de lo que habla -vive en el Twitter- y propone separar la reputación de la identidad, dotando de mayor libertad al individuo. Linda sugiere considerar a la reputación como sólo una parte del capital social –entre otras variables como la influencia o las conexiones-. Según ella vale disociar, escribir por placer en la web personal, sin que esto afecte lo profesional –aunque conozco ejemplos de lo contrario- (:D).

Hay ensayos análogos de Linda Stone sobre continua atención parcial. Si –como afirma Stone- nuestra conciencia online está fragmentada en una serie de microtareas en paralelo, este mismo debate se repite ad infinitum pero a lo largo del dia. Lo que somos –nuestra atención, nuestra conciencia, nuestros pensamientos- está pasando por una picadora de carne; lo que nuestros compañeros de trabajo online reciben de nosotros es una faceta que depende muy críticamente de cada momento, llegando a extremos impensados como se ve en Email Apnea.

Y aún si uno fuera profundamente coherente entre facetas profesionales y personales, esto no soportaría largos períodos. Internet ya tiene unos quince años; hay opiniones propias y a menudo contradictorias que no pueden limpiarse con facilidad. En este caso esos viejos escrito son retazos de la propia identidad que pueden afectar la reputación de sus autores. Y qué con esto?

Para esto sólo vale cierta sabiduría del “offline”. La identidad –lo que uno es- no depende de la opinión de los demás. El online es un ámbito cambiante. De él sólo se pueden esperar ligeros atisbos de una persona, pero no una representación acabada. Con esto en mente, y con los escasos filtros de Facebook y similares, los más lúdicos se abandonarán al juego del quién-es-quién online, mientras que los más conservadores directamente no participarán de estos rituales.

“Reputation is an idle and most false imposition; often got without merit, and lost without deserving.” (Shakespeare).

Frictionless Web 2.0

“I´m about to complete this paper with the precise help of some guys I don’t even know”. That was my general feeling after receiving excellent answers to my last question on LinkedIn which gave me plenty of new perspective. Of course I would never knew these people if it wasn´t by LinkedIn; in spite of that I was given very precise and polite remarks.

With this peaceful state of mind I selected a third of the responders to email them, saying hello and thank you, and eventually asking for some further details. A bit later I received two discouraging answers, sort of “Would you consider tagging my answer as a 'best answer' on LinkedIn?”

Paradoxically the answer was focused in web 2.0 trends that would affect Telco developents. So I remained pondering about this: sometimes the driver is not honest collaboration but the sheer reward. In this cases the concept of prestige in Web 2.0 is rather tricky (number of connections, number of good answers, etc). For some reason individuals may be looking around for some Web 2.0 cheap prestige in forums, and I can´t blame them. It has to do with your education: now it´s a “best answer” label, but some decades ago may have been nice stickers given in kinder gardens, just for behaving and sitting well.

Thus I must be failing in understanding the exact value of users in web 2.0 sites, and that reminds me with the Orbital Concept stated hereafter:

1. Every user of a website has a unique mass, measurable by their gravity (how many other users they attract towards themselves).
2. The larger a user’s mass, the stronger their personal gravity.
3. Users with larger mass pull users with smaller mass into their orbit.
4. Once in a site’s orbit, a user is now a measurable part of the website. His mass is a measurable part of a self-contained system.
5. The more often a user returns to a site (the more loyal they are), the tighter and faster their orbit is.

What I think: you get no gravity for demanding “Best Answer” rewards. And if you want to know the end of the little story, I answered nothing to both "best answers" solicitors. I´ll wait instead.

Living in a Facebook world

On this side of the table you’ve got walled gardens. It is quite a strange world: the measure of something is how many people you can hook inside -another season of Prison Break?-. Let´s put it mildy, call it living in a Facebook world. What would you find there? Different models of cars would travel in separate highways. Nokia cell phones would only be able to communicate with Nokia cell phones, or Movistar customers wouldn´t possible talk with Claro´s. My network is mine, your network is yours. In such a world Blackberry, Palm or Treo would have their own operative system. Bad example: that really happens…

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On the other side, Daniel Alegre (VP LatAm, Google) commented today in Buenos Aires about the development of Android, an open-free platform, which supossedly would rise mobile web browsing. In his own words “The big social network we share is by far larger than Facebook o MySpace. That’s why Google strategy is open source, because building separate blocks doesn´t work. That is the future”.