One girlfriend or more? Hmm…

Online Identity

An online identity is a networked identity adopted in cyberspace by an individual, organisation or electronic device.

To me, an online identity is like a virtual girlfriend who knows you very well and likes to show your everything off to the world.

dreamstime.com

According to Internet Society, an online security company has identified more than 200 Third-Party advertisers with more than 630 Tracking Technology tracking the various websites that one visits. Every actions on the various social media are stored and commercialised.

Silverpop.com, 2014

I used the hashtag ‘#Marketing’ on WordPress and Twitter for this module. I’ve gained 6 new unknown Twitter followers from marketing agencies.

Is it healthy to have more than one online identity?

It’s 2014, social media is everywhere! As of November 2014, there are 1.35 billion users of Facebook. 91% of today’s employers use social media to check out on the interviewees’ personal life, which 76% checking their Facebook accounts and 53% checking Twitter. (Undercover Recruiter, 2011)

Some like to separate their private and professional lives to show their employers that they are well-behaved and worthy to be hired, while boosting the image of the company.

Simply put, people have more than one online identity to protect their own reputation and preserving their freedom.

What’s not good about having more than one?

Number one, I feel that it is rather difficult to manage and maintain various online identities. It is troublesome to update two accounts in today’s world when we need more than 24 hours a day to do our work!

Secondly, it is easy to create an account on any social sites. No one usually reads the ‘Terms and Conditions’ before creating a new account. This is where cyber-bullying comes into play. I had this friend who created another Facebook account with a face of a pretty girl as the profile picture to trick his other friend. He managed to ‘cyber-date’ this friend for 6 months. Both were guys.

This is a rather smart way to scam and criticise people. Racist remarks (illegal in Singapore) could be thrown to people from an unknown social media account. Money scamming where some are tricked into paying for nothing.

What do I think?

All in all, to me, it does not really matter whether or not I have a separate account where my employers would only see the ‘good’ side of me. I feel that, as marketers, we should be able to show our wild side of us to our employers. Usually these wild people are fun-loving and creative, that is what is needed in marketers.

---

Warburton, S. 2010. Rhizome Digital Identity Matters. [Online] Available at: http://digitaldisruptions.org/rhizome/wpcontent/uploads/2010/06/rhiz08_DigitalIdentityMatters.pdf  [Accessed 1 Dec. 2014].

YouTube, (2014). Four Reasons to Care About Your Digital Footprint. [online] Available at: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OA6aiFeMQZ0#t=100 [Accessed 1 Dec. 2014].

Silverpop.com, (2014). Silverpop – 5 Steps to Behavioral Marketing Success. [online] Available at: http://www.silverpop.com/blogs/email-marketing/behavioral-marketing-steps.html/blog_5-steps-to-behavioral-marketing_bb_final-2 [Accessed 1 Dec. 2014].

Leading social networks worldwide as of November 2014, r. (2014). Social networks: global sites ranked by users 2014 | Statistic. [online] Statista. Available at: http://www.statista.com/statistics/272014/global-social-networks-ranked-by-number-of-users/ [Accessed 1 Dec. 2014].

Undercover Recruiter, (2011). How Employers Use Social Media To Screen Applicants [INFOGRAPHIC]. [online] Available at: http://theundercoverrecruiter.com/infographic-how-recruiters-use-social-media-screen-applicants/ [Accessed 1 Dec. 2014].

Looking Back

I had a wonderful time reading through my classmates’ posts on Topic 1. All of them have their own interesting points to share, but there were a few notable ones that got me thinking, or rather, I couldn’t help but agree.

Sara mentioned that Prensky’s concept is flawed due to the age biases. It got me thinking if it takes a certain level of understanding of the use of technology for both the young and old generations is vital in searching for information.

The answer to that question is on Simon’s post on Motivation.

Eureka! Digital Visitor me searching for answers!

Simon stated that one must first understand the motivation behind why people use the web and for what purpose. It is all up the the person’s willingness to learn the technology that they need to achieve the goal that they want.

This brings back all that I have learnt in Human Resource Management. There is a need to understand one’s behaviour of using the web by understanding more than what Prensky mentioned of age.

Another blog that I have enjoyed reading is Vanessa’s one. She gave the example that, as marketers, it is our duty to be able to change digital visitors to digital residents. I fully agree with this idea of changing digital visitors to digital residents. Using her example of ASOS.com, it got me thinking how ASOS.com measures the amount of viewers of the sites are digital visitors or digital residents. Is it by measuring the number of sales? Or is it by seeing how many people saves clothing into their wish lists?

These are all debatable issues.

One thing that I could take away from this topic is that everyone falls into the two category of digital visitors and digital residents with some motivation spurring them to use the web.

Cheers!

---

http://saradanlee.wordpress.com/2014/11/27/digital-visitor-vs-digital-resident/

http://wingslykeagles.wordpress.com/2014/11/27/topic-1-digital-residents-and-visitors/

http://vanessalisoton.wordpress.com/2014/11/27/topic-1-digital-residence-digital-visitors/

Permanent Resident & Citizen?! Visitor & Resident?! What?!

What does a visitor means? How about a resident?

Dictionary.com has the answer!

A visitor represents a person who visits, as for reasons of friendship, business, duty,travel, or the like.

A resident represents a person who stays in a place.

So, what about a digital ‘visitor’ and a digital ‘resident’?

David White feels that a digital ‘visitor’ is one who sees the web as an tool to do their necessary research, just to get things done. They do not feel that there is a need for social media and in turn, find the social media a time waster. They are those who do not have a belonging ‘online’ and would prefer to do their thinking ‘offline’. They prefer to keep to themselves and likes to privatise their lives.

A digital ‘resident’ is one who see the web as a place where their family, friends and colleagues gather together to discuss about their lives. They live out a proportion of their lives online where they have a sense of belonging to a community through the various platforms of social networking. They are those who are pretty comfortable in expressing their identity online.

There might be researches that states that there is a growing trend in the younger generation who are glued onto the web to either play games or visit the social media sites whereas the older generations like to do something more meaningful like doing some sports to keep fit or watching a movie.

In contrary, David White’s concept do not directly place people into one category. Some can be digital ‘visitors’ at times and at other times, they could be more of a digital ‘resident’, vice versa. 

As a ‘resident’, I would be refreshing my news feeds on the social networking platforms like Facebook, Twitter, Tumblr, Instagram and with this module, WordPress whenever possible, most notably, on the train or together with my friends. I am also a ‘visitor’, with me searching for interesting topics for my own interest and as soon as I am done with the search, I may not visit the site again.

All in all, everyone is a digital ‘visitor’, as well as a digital ‘resident’, irregardless of age. It is just like travelling where one can be visiting a place of interest or currently residing at that place. In my opinion, I think David White’s concept was a good read, together with the other references given to us.

---

White, D. and Le Cornu, A. (2011). Visitors and Residents: A new typology for online engagement. First Monday, 16(9).