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Old 6 Jun 2014, 09:06 AM   #1
Tsunami
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Your online personal introduction - which would you choose?

With the rise of social media such as Facebook, Twitter, previously MySpace, ... having a sort of online profile introducing yourself has never been more omnipresent online.

I am still somewhat uncomfortable with it though (probably because I grew up in the days when people still created websites instead of social network profiles). Does it make sence, even today, when I say a personal website with a short biography, email form, links to your blogs and befriended websites, etc is still looking a lot better and offering more options (no restrictions on number of pages, or length of what you want to write) than a profile on a networking site?

Or would using an actual personal website as self introduction be a bad idea because a website is not connected to any profile on the commonly used networking websites? I am unsure and hence asking your opinions, but my intuition says that sometimes old school is still best and that a website gives more freedom in personalising your online introduction pages ...
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Old 6 Jun 2014, 09:39 AM   #2
David
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According to this website the percentage of people (on planet earth) who use 'Facebook' is only 11%.

Social media is not all that important to most people..........

Many folk have lives and have better things to do with their time.....
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Old 6 Jun 2014, 04:43 PM   #3
zdt
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Not having any facebook or other global social media [1] account maybe makes me not the perfect fit to answer your question but here are some things I have to say.

* Internet services come and go. It seems difficult for facebook to just fade away considering all those users and all those clients (advertisers) that pay so much money, but it has happened before. Myspace (which you mentioned) was the dominant once upon a time but nobody uses it today.

* Having the info on *your* site makes *you* responsible for it and as long as you pay the bills no one can make you change anything. Not relying on other services makes you free.

* If you consider the facebook etc as a place that you "have to be there too" maybe you can make there a link to your personal site where you really are.

* The internet is free (or it used to be). Why make your self a hostage of a single service while you can use federated services that are there for you in the open net? Some friends of mine stopped using email because they only use personal messages from twitter or facebook to talk to each other. Email is for all: an internet convenience based on agreed standards that anyone with access to the internet can use, PMs are for a service's users: even if everybody is there (which is not true) why use a company's protocol instead of a free to use standardized service? It is not something like using your car versus using public transport but more like using public transport versus using the vehicles of a company offered to you without cost but with some limitations (mainly privacy ones but this is not the point that I try to make here).

* On the same line: many people or organizations stopped having a private web site and replaced it with a page in a social media site. They now use the term "I uploaded it on my facebook page/twiiter/googleplus/etc" instead of "I uploaded it in my web-page/blog/etc". Its like having a huge park with trees and small lakes and some stores where you can go with your family versus a small (but more clean and organized) private park with free entrance where nothing is public domain but all you see is the property of a single company.



[1] By using the term "global social media" I try to distinguish the internet services that have a general purpose of connecting people (their users) without any special attribute or other characteristic. Social media in terms of connecting users was here since the early 90's but it was usually of special purpose: forums for car drivers, for scuba-diving, computer users, email discussions etc. Additionally the "global social media" have users all around the (western?) world but geography is not the point of the word "global" rather the "one size fits all" general purpose of the service.
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Old 7 Jun 2014, 03:21 AM   #4
Adrian Bell
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Why not just do both? I don't use Facebook either.
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Old 9 Jun 2014, 04:06 AM   #5
adamlau
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Facebook all the way. Who your friends are and what people post about you says a lot more about who you really are than a personally written website introduction.
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Old 15 Jun 2014, 08:56 AM   #6
webecedarian
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Interesting statistics, David, thanks.

Tsunami, would it make a difference what your basic purpose was - for instance, if you expected it to be mostly for professional work connections?
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Old 26 Jul 2014, 08:57 AM   #7
Tsunami
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Quote:
Originally Posted by webecedarian View Post
Interesting statistics, David, thanks.

Tsunami, would it make a difference what your basic purpose was - for instance, if you expected it to be mostly for professional work connections?
Mainly artistic connections (which, if you consider art to be a serious occupation, would I guess be somewhat "professional" too...) but could also be used to put a short biography and some opinion pieces and articles which you can refer to, rather than having to write things all over again each time you learn to know a new person online. You could just, rather than presenting yourself, refer to the biography and opinion pieces on a website; if that's a good idea at least?

As for business: no corporations or contacts in the business world as usually understood by that term, but I have artistic connections which you could see as a sort of "professional contacts". Depending on your interpretation of art being a sort of business or not.
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Old 27 Jul 2014, 12:55 PM   #8
kijinbear
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Quote:
Originally Posted by adamlau View Post
Who your friends are and what people post about you says a lot more about who you really are than a personally written website introduction.
As a matter of fact, you're probably right.

As a matter of principle, I hate that you're probably right.

As someone who produces a fair amount of writing and open-source software, I'd rather people judged me based on my writings and programs, not what some random follower who doesn't really even know me said about me in a random comment.

Which is why I maintain a personal website, but instead of "Hi, I'm kijinbear, I'm X, Y, Z and and like A, B, C," and instead of linking to some social media profiles, the front page is just a blog that contains my recent writings and some links to the programs I wrote. Who cares what I say I am? The sum total of the works I've produced over the years are a much better reflector of my thoughts and personality than any single sentence that I can construct. I believe the same goes for musicians, painters, actors, and anyone else who is passionate about the adage, "show, don't tell."

I obviously can't control what people will think about me at the end of the day. But I surely can have, and fully intend to exercise, at least some degree of control over the kinds of information on which they will base their judgments.
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Old 2 Aug 2014, 11:52 AM   #9
popples
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Tsunami View Post
With the rise of social media such as Facebook, Twitter, previously MySpace, ... having a sort of online profile introducing yourself has never been more omnipresent online.

I am still somewhat uncomfortable with it though (probably because I grew up in the days when people still created websites instead of social network profiles). Does it make sence, even today, when I say a personal website with a short biography, email form, links to your blogs and befriended websites, etc is still looking a lot better and offering more options (no restrictions on number of pages, or length of what you want to write) than a profile on a networking site?

Or would using an actual personal website as self introduction be a bad idea because a website is not connected to any profile on the commonly used networking websites? I am unsure and hence asking your opinions, but my intuition says that sometimes old school is still best and that a website gives more freedom in personalising your online introduction pages ...

You could have both (social media profiles and personal home pages), and link them together. What some people do, is have a whole bunch of social media accounts (with social networks, microblogs, blogs etc) plus their own websites, and then link them together via sites like About.me i.e. sites where you can create a profile page that has a short bio and web links. Profile page sites like About.me typically have a short URL, making them convenient for placing in social media profiles.
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Old 4 Aug 2014, 07:25 AM   #10
popowich
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For personal I use Facebook, for professional I use LinkedIn:

http://www.linkedin.com/in/raymondpopowich/

If any of the more active users here want to add +1 to their network feel free to connect.

If it's not obvious please include your EMD screen name in the request message.
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Old 10 Aug 2014, 02:24 AM   #11
William9
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Quote:
Originally Posted by David View Post
According to this website the percentage of people (on planet earth) who use 'Facebook' is only 11%.

Social media is not all that important to most people..........

Many folk have lives and have better things to do with their time.....
It's the trite expression "is the glass is half full or half empty". 11% of the world's population is huge potential exposure
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