Kathleen Gilroy writes about profile and identity on the Fastforward blog. To me there seems to be a lot of unnecessary confusion around this subject; I wrote a lengthy comment to Kathleen's post, and with a couple of minor edits I'm cross-posting it here: With or without the Web, I have profiles in many many places; people always have had. A profile (think of the metaphor behind the word) is a particular view of who I am created for a particular purpose. The description of me on the jacket of one of my books, like the description of me at the Connectbeam website, is a single instance description. I met Kathleen last week for the first time (and not face to face); if someone asks her about me next week, she'll have something to say -- that too is a 'profile.' Even - and maybe moreso! - the word identity is subject to this problematic use online. People write about the subject as if before the Web 'identity' was a simple thing! Not just my profile, but who I am changes depending on when and from where someone looks at "me." And the question of where my identity lives on the Web seems equally confused. In the everyday world before the Web, there was no one place my identity lived; there still isn't. My identity lives in me and in my acts and relationships.
http://tommandel.com/blog/2007_01_01_archive.shtml...