The significance of usernames

In chapter 12 of Brian Solis' book Engage he describes the importance of maintaining a professional online persona. A lot of what he is discussing places emphasis on the minor details of your online persona, such as the usernames we assign ourselves. While much of this chapter is aimed toward business-associated online profiles, this logic can also be compared to our personal online persona's.

While reading I couldn't help but apply my own usernames to what he was describing. I pretty much stick to the username "biancaatx" for most social networking sites that require usernames. "Biancaatx" isn't creative. It's simple and obviously combines my name and where I live. It doesn't necessarily harm or help my online persona.

This reminded me of some of the awful usernames I have used in the past. I remember my very first AOL username, GlitzieGirl101 from when I was 10 or 11. Just seeing that on-screen makes me cringe with embarrassment. I reminds me of a screen name Lizzie McGuire might have had. From then on the usernames didn't get much better, only more embarrassing in fact. I transitioned to lilprep628, then sassygrl912. As I got older and inevitably more angsty (as most over-dramatic teenagers do) my usernames followed suit with screennames like shutupXbianca. Then when I was determined to seem mature, way before maturity ever took place, I had an online journal where I took on the username _my_incentive.

In recalling all the usernames I have possessed in the last 10 years I find it interesting that my generation has something like usernames to use as a place marker for certain times in our life. We can look back at old usernames and recall the type of people we used to be.

This realization really corresponds with what Brian Solis was saying in chapter 12. Usernames say a lot about the people behind them. They create the initial reaction to our online personas so it is important to really be aware of how you portray yourself through social media.

Something to consider.

Twitter vs. Facebook: Who got businesses to pay attention first?

"Twitter has not only led the way for the evolution of microconversations, it has single-handedly forced businesses to pay attention to online conversations on a mass, and growing scale."
 - Brian Solis , Engage

I would argue that the above quote is factual minus one keyword, "single-handedly".

It is no secret that Twitter has played a massive role in establishing an unbiased communication tool for consumers and producers. But I wouldn't say they worked alone. I don't know the numbers, but I would say that there is probably a somewhat equal number of business-associated presence on both Twitter and Facebook. Maybe Twitter was easier to get the dialog started, and a less complicated avenue for such dialog, but it is my opinion that businesses felt the need to break into social media because of the overwhelming popularity of Facebook, not Twitter.

Facebook led the social media revolution as we know it today. Sure, 7 years ago we all had Myspace's, but we weren't engulfed in it the way we are in Facebook. Myspace was a one dimensional option for shameless self-promotion. Facebook was a tool for connecting people and creating conversations. Twitter was essentially a less complicated combination of both, minus pretentious behavior.

By no means do I wish to discredit Twitter as an innovative outlet for increasing communication between consumers and producers, but I don't think they worked alone in emphasizing the need for businesses to pay attention to online conversations. I think it just provided the easiest way for them to do so.

Becoming Media: We are what we consume

In chapter four of Brian Solis' book Engage, he makes a subtle point that really caught my eye.

In his description of how the creation of media is shifting to become more controlled by its consumers, rather than producers, he says, "We have the power and capacity to reach people far beyond our local television and radio broadcasts and even beyond those of the most prestigious nation media empires. The difference is that this reach is not prescribed; it must be earned."

He goes on to describe how media has transformed into a two way street and because of this, we as consumers are able to have a choice about what media we chose to follow and even, to some degree, trust.

This idea got me thinking about the life span of media. When radio and television first came out consumers were given less than a handful of programming options. Our programming options increased fairly steadily in years following its creation, until recently.

It seems like over night we went from having a specific number of media outlet options to having an innumerable number of options. We have satellite radio, internet radio, and local broadcasts. We have basic cable, direct cable, dish networks, Hulu and Netflix. These examples just being the ones that came to my mind instantly. It would be impossible for me to truly calculate all of our media options on the internet.

This is all due in large part to consumers now play in their media. While some ethical issues surrounding the concept that anyone with a computer can be a "journalist" exist, it is somewhat refreshing to have so many options. Will this fact change the structure of major media conglomerates? How will major networks compete for audiences in the future?