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I wrote an article several months ago stating that the "Web 2.0" boom finally had me excited about the Internet again. All of the interactive goodness that we've been promised for years is finally becoming available...it's a new Internet again. I've come to realize in the past 6 months to a year that these terrific websites are starting to give me a terrible headache. I've lost my identity. I have no home, no face, who am I?
I've had my own domain and website for many years. I had a personal blog before I knew what a blog was. If someone asked for my homepage, I told them exactly where to go to find out more about me. For some time now, however, I've not known how to answer that question. Do they want to know about my personal news? I can send them to my blog. Maybe they want to see my pictures? Flickr. Do they want to know what I'm reading? There's always my page at digg, newsvine, newscloud.... My personal homepage has become a ugly mess of tidbits from all over the web and I still wonder if it's really me. I'm caught in the world wide web and the more I struggle, the more tangled I become.
I've explored websites such as SuprGlu and ClaimID and have resigned myself to the fact that my whole life has now become a giant RSS feed or list of links. It's been a pet-project of mine for months to develop a web application that will help me to combine all of the services I use into one happy website, but for every service I add, I find 2 more that I need to work on. Life online moves too fast for anyone to keep up. I have a half-dozen calendars, a dozen or so e-mails and IM names, ump-teen social news sites, a couple of photo-sharing sites, a few social networks....I can't take it any more!
I'm beginning to think that enough is enough. Maybe it's time for the bubble to burst again so that we can all find ourselves. There's already been significant consolidation in the web 2.0 space. Companies such as Google and Yahoo can't seem to buy up enough start-ups. There's also the down-side. We're beginning to see companies with great ideas throw in the towel, picked over when the great claw passed them by to grab the cuter teddy bear on the other side of the game. I know that I find myself less mystified by new start-ups than I was a few months ago. If you're not doing something completely new and in the most revolutionary way possible, then I just don't care. It's just not worth signing up for one more thing. I'm sorry, but the position has already been filled. Don't bother leaving your resume'. I have a hard time thinking I'm alone on this.
So how do you keep up with your identity online? Are you like me, with a face dotted by dozens of web services? Are you a loyalist, with one home, no matter how much greener everyone else's grass is? Have you just given up? Before I drown in my sea of ripples, I'd like to know how you float along.
Web 2.0, we were once in love. Now I must say, don't call me, I'll call you.
