One Identity to Rule Them All

Dave Winer is a genius because he thinks like a real person and when he hits on something that "should be", he makes something so that it "IS". So when he says that the right number of identity systems for each user is 1 he's right on the money.

Filling out a profile for every social networking site I join is a royal pain in the butt. Back when the Virginia Tech tragedy happened, I joined Facebook so I could leave a message on their wall. I haven't touched it again other than to add a friend or two when they added me until tonight, when I decided to play around with it a little more (since Facebook is the new "hot thing" on the geek blogs these days, usurping Twitter and for the moment, the iPhone).

I have little snippets of me all over the web — Flickr, Twitter, Zooomr, Gather, Ning, Blogher, etc. etc. etc.

I want one profile that I own that I can assign to any social network I join. And then I want to be able to broadcast updates across those networks so that I don't have to post to Twitter, Zipline and Facebook separately, for example. Or a way to upload my photos to Flickr or Zooomr and have those automatically feed to Gather, Facebook, and anywhere else I designate without having to update it.

The other benefit of having an "identity profile" (for lack of a better term) is credibility. I felt like this was where OpenID was going with the effort to tie in identity to a place; e.g. a website or address which belongs to the owner of the profile. It seems to me that in the land of social networks just like in real life, people who establish their identity and put down roots somewhere are more credible than the drifter passing through town. Or at least, more accountable.

If anyone can figure this out, Dave Winer can. Hopefully he will, and soon.

Doc Searls: Transparency, Independence and Blogs

This is a nice interview with Doc Searls (it could be audio only and be just as good, by the way...). He shares thoughts on making money from blogging, fairness and transparency.

I don't completely agree with his views on being paid to post reviews and/or advertisements, but I do see his point, because there are many bloggers out there who will write about a product purely because they are being paid and not because they believe in the product or site or service itself. I don't place myself in that category, nor do I place many of the other bloggers I've met through paid posting in that category. That begs the question: Is there a way to differentiate between the shill and the sincere blogger who is paid to review and post an honest opinion of an advertiser's product?

The thing I appreciate about Doc is that he's nice, he takes great photos, he's always saying something to make me think and evaluate. He talks about being nice in the interview as well. If you're interested in ethical blogging, transparency and the correlation to ethics in journalism, it's definitely worth a listen.