'Your web presence is your CV' chat continues

I think this conversation Matthew and I are having about whether we should have personal online presences or not is interesting - it's made me think about my views, and back them up.

Do you think this is the future, or am I getting too onliney-nerdy-navel-gazey?

Comments

[Alex Farran]

I'm not particularly active in creating a web presence, but I'm fully aware that everything I say publicly on the internet is archived forever and available to anyone from any sphere of my life. So that's always in the back of my mind. Some people haven't adjusted to this yet: http://www.bbc.co.uk/blogs/theeditors/2006/07/were_watching_you.html

I think my usenet / mailing list postings and my del.icio.us bookmarks are the most revealing parts of my online persona. They generate my 'web CV' almost effortlessly as a byproduct of casual online conversations. This is more natural for me than the public performance of a blog or homepage.

Your web presence is just one aspect of your reputation. It's very like a CV in that it's broadcast most widely, but also quite lightweight. I'd take a personal recommendation over a CV or a google search any day.

[Will McInnes]

Are you usenet postings and delicious bookmarks available from your personal online presence? Because for user-friendliness you should seek to provide as few centralised points as possible which point off to other online snippets, I think.

[Alex Farran]

No. But that was sort of my point. I have an online identity whether I want one or not. Unless I deliberately disguise my identitiy then it's easy for anyone to find out a lot about me with very little effort. Having a fairly distinct name helps. There's only one other Alex Farran competing with me on the web, and none elsewhere.

BTW I used to get an email when you posted a reply to my comment. Didn't happen this time.

[Matthew]

It's interesting how the current web apps are facilitating a new way of meeting and interacting with people. Del.icio.us is a case in point. I can certainly recognise the power of this service and it clearly works for a lot of people, but despite the benefits from using it to manage my bookmarks, the bottom line is I simply don't like it.

I work much better by remembering folder structures of information. I know where all my bookmarks are in my Firefox folders and this works much better for me than tags. Does this make me weird? Maybe. Does my preference for this mean I miss out on the wider networking opportunities that Del.icio.us provides? Almost certainly. But it doesn't bother me.

I don't feel like I'm missing out because I haven't jumped on the tagging bandwagon. Will I be left behind?

[Alex Farran]

I don't use del.icio.us for networking really, but it can be good for seeing what people with similar interests are reading.

I like tagging because it's less constraining than a folder structure. I can put one bookmark in several categories at once without having to redo my heirarchy, and I can easily create very small categories with just one or two bookmarks in them.

What it lacks is the kind of spacial navigation that a heirarchical organisation gives you. More work needs to be done on visualisation tools - tag clouds don't impress me much.

There's a good essay about tags vs ontologies here
http://shirky.com/writings/ontology_overrated.html

In the end it's just one more way of organising data. You choose the most appropriate structure for the data, making trade offs against cost of maintenance, ease of access etc.

[Will McInnes]

Agree wholeheartedly, Alex.
The My Documents on my PC is unbelievably neatly organised, and I thrive on and get the most out of the hierarchical structure it uses.
But just as much as I love that, I find a big place in my heart and my mind for tagging as a means to organise info - particularly bookmarks.
In addition to being a means of organising info, I love the visual nature of tag clouds and LOVE LOVE LOVE the shareability of my delicious tags - I have recently been able to point clients to my 'button' bookmarks for examples of good website button designs. Superbalola.