Oh what a tangled web we weave… - Sir Walter Scott

Ok, so perhaps I’m not practicing to decieve (the full quote is “Oh what a tangled web we weave, when first we practice to decieve”), but still, the web is tangled regardless.

I posted on Why Enterprises are Sucker-punched by Web2.0 earlier which got me thinking about what the complexity and interaction on the web really looks like so I thought I’d further illustrate that the web is an eco-system by trying to map out my own little corner of the web.  This brings me nicely on to the next topic of my re-factor your digital life series which is to Interoperate.

But first, here is my little eco-system:

As you can see, it’s a tangled web indeed. This is really only what I consider my core on-line presence, I haven’t really included other services that I don’t use (Plaxo), are incidental in nature only (Feedjit), I still intend to get rid of (Jaiku), or are more personal in nature (for example Dopplr also links to my family blog).  I also haven’t shown the series of feeds etc. that keep me on top of what’s going on.

The coloured dots represent the direct inputs into the system, either mobile, through a PC client or via the Web.

The dotted lines show the various automated data feeds between the systems.

The solid lines show the direct links and click-throughs.

A few comments on all of this:

• The hub of my presence is now this blog.  All relevant services feed into and can be reached from this blog.  I’ve tried to close the loop.  It’s paying off, a contact from IBM commented today he had seen the blog because he linked to it when we connected on LinkedIn.
• Actually it’s not as complex as it looks in some respects because much of the networking below the interface layer is now self tending and it’s actually contextual in terms of time and place at the input layer.

Of course, the choice of services is not as random as it might appear.  I’ve been putting a bit of thought into the core services I want to use and why.

• Wordpress (binaryplex.com) - Drives this blog and is very customisable to let me link in my other on-line presences in a nice, clean template.  This blog represents to some degree what I am thinking about and exploring where I can share and learn from others.
• Twitter - I use Twitter because it keeps many of my profiles “fresh”, for example, even if I don’t post daily, the Flash badge on BinaryPlex let’s you know I’m still around.  TwitterFeed promotes my blog entries in Twitter to those contacts, while TwitterSync means that my FaceBook status is always fresh and up to date.  I’m also learning lots and making connections with Twitter (especially since I discovered Summize which lets me discover people and conversations I might be interested in).
• Dopplr - My main purpose for blogging and my on-line presence is ultimately to connect with people around ideas.  Dopplr gives me the opportunity to take this one step further and potentially lead into the physical space as well.
• LinkedIn - People’s mileage on LinkedIn will vary, but for me, it’s a better address book, which has the advantage that you update your contact details without me needing to keep track of you.  With many sites adding LinkedIn support it’s a nice way to get set up with new sites and quickly find friends you want to invite or who already use a service and you connect to.  Finally, it’s the other half of my on-line presence - if Binaryplex.com is what I’m thinking and doing, then LinkedIn is a more professional, consolidated record of what I’ve done.
• Del.icio.us - I could use Ma.gnolia.com, I’m used to del.icio.us, it does what I need and others I work with use it too.  My challenge on the social bookmarking front is that with a trial of an internal bookmark service in DogEar now, I’m struggling to figure out how to manage both services — I want my bookmarks external, but I recognise the value internally for people who won’t use a service like del.icio.us.
• Facebook - Actually I don’t really use Facebook much at all anymore, I got sick of the spam and generally speaking the people I want to connect with on a more serious level aren’t on there anyway.  With TwitterSync, my Facebook friends get a live update on me and what I’m up to, I’ve turned down all the notifications and I go on-line occasionally to connect socially with some of the people that I don’t find in other spheres.

So that’s step 6, inter-operate, plug and connect to make a more streamlined, connected on-line presence.

Step 1: Get a better browser

Step 2: Explore your mail hosts options and consolidate your mail into fewer accounts

Step 3: Update your blog software and template

Step 4: Be consistent and be you!

Step 5: Evolve your digital life

Step 6: Interoperate and connect

Reputation is character minus what you’ve been caught doing — Michael Iapoce

On-line you can be who you want to be, however I think most regular bloggers will agree that reputations are built and enhanced by interacting with people who aren’t afraid to be themselves, rather than hiding behind a persona.  Of course, over time we accumulate baggage that doesn’t represent us fully now.

When I started blogging, I was more protective of who I am, but over time I’ve appeared in so many places that identifying and tracking back the real me isn’t actually that hard.  This leads to an inconsistency.

I’ve also experimented with several blogs over the years and under some pseudonyms that I’d rather weren’t attributed back to me (personally I think that there was a positive message in my LazyLeaders blog, but at first glance, which might be all you get if someone is looking to employ you, the title isn’t really that flattering).

To achieve this, I’ve been slowly doing several things:

1. Linking the value sites together - LinkedIn takes you to this blog, this blog takes you to LinkedIn and Twitter, Twitter will bring you back here.
2. Deleting accounts that I no longer need or use.  Nothing wrong with them, but I’m trying to centralise and consolidate my identity on line (goodby Jaiku).
3. Deleting old blogs where I just don’t need them.
4. I’m claiming my identity (http://claimid.com) which will also give me an OpenID.

So here it is, Step 4 in re-factoring your digital life:

Step 1: Get a better browser

Step 2: Explore your mail hosts options and consolidate your mail into fewer accounts

Step 3: Update your blog software and template

Step 4: Be consistent and be you!

There are many places one can begin, but for me the first step in the journey is my internet browser. For various reasons (not least because we still use it at work) I’ve stuck with IE6. I played with version 1 of Firefox, but the performance was terrible and it used to lock up on me all the time, so I never went back.

Step 1 in re-factoring my life is getting a latest release browser. To that end I’m (as much as possible) using Firefox V3 (currently RC1). Where RC1 doesn’t work, I’m falling back to Firefox 2. Why? Well beyond the obvious things like tabs etc., when compared to IE6:

1. It’s faster! That’s right, browsers like all applications improve in speed and memory usage with each release. Unlike the olden days of the internet, where processing all happened on the server, now a lot of the underlying technologies that deliver that Web 2.0 experience happen on your PC client. A fast browser makes for a better experience.
2. Plug-in support and extensibility. If you’re on IE6 still and use del.icio.us, try this one simple step. Download Firefox 2, and install the del.icio.us bookmark tools. Game over IE6.
3. A lot of the new release software I’m working with is written by developers who use Firefox. I shouldn’t forget our users who are stuck with IE6 for various reasons, BUT particularly with beta software, I get a better first look experience with Firefox.
4. I hadn’t realised until I started using Firefox V2+ again, how many sites now don’t render properly in IE6. When you’re writing a consumer focussed application, support for IE7+ and Firefox2+ is the minimum it seems. If you’re looking at this site (http://binaryplex.com), it doesn’t render properly for IE6 — you have to use Firefox2 or IE7 to get the proper experience.

So here it is, step one for re-factoring your life:

Step 1: Get a better browser

You’ll see a few changes across the board in the next week or two as I gradually re-factor my digital life.  What’s this mean?  Well I have 4 blogs, 4 active e-mail addresses (other inactive ones), three web hosts (only one I remember the password to and it’s broken), 1 old http site archived on disk, more social network accounts than I can track, e-mail spam from sites I don’t read, feeds from sites I do and generally a fractured on-line identity that has evolved as the internet has evolved.

I’m going to be actively stream-lining all this activity to centralise it into services that I do use, where you can come to get the latest.  I’m going to actively shut-down accounts I don’t use (Jaiku) and make more prominent services I am using (Twitter and LinkedIn).

I’ve already created an OpenID account (yes, I’m slow) and I’m setting BinaryPlex as a delegator of my OpenID to http://claimid.com.  In light of this I’m going to actively re-consider my use of sites like http://del.icio.us (which doesn’t support OpenID) and consider http://ma.gnolia.com instead which does.

The end aim will be a new, streamlined, re-factored Internet me, that is updated to take advantage of the latest trends.  I think it’s an essential piece of housekeeping that everyone should do!

To that end, I’ve reluctantly retired the old green BinaryPlex format for a much more up to date, 2-column, widget and WordPress 2.5.x compatible theme.  I hope it grows on me, I have been very attached to the greenery one :-).  The 2-columns will become more important as I intend to feed more meta information into this site than I have in the past.

As I conduct each step, I’ll blog about why I’ve made the moves I have and what I see the advantages are. Maybe some of you will join me on this adventure and I hope to take small steps towards catching up with those others of you who have passed me by while my digital identity has been standing still over the last 12 - 18 months.