The importance of an identity in the global namespace

When somebody wants to find you on the internet, there are multiple ways of doing so. Names can be googled. You can search for some notable piece of a person's work, or look for their page on a university site that they might be affiliated with (for academic-type people, of course). However, for most of us, there really isn't a good way for people to keep up with us and our work, or even for us to track ourselves on the internet!

The solution to this appears to be to use a kind of username, an identity, a textual avatar wherever you go. It should be a string of characters, a kind of common username to you. Make it the same everywhere. Make it unique.

Facebook has recently latched onto this concept, and as I don't use facebook much, it looks like I missed the boat on getting my identity in. They have required everybody to obtain a username, instead of just using the email addresses that made facebook what it is today. Since almost everybody (on the Internet who has friends) has an account now, they've forced everyone to conform and register themselves into the one facebook (= global) namespace. I missed the boat, but still got a substring of my normal name.

What makes up a good identity string thing

It really has to be unique. Many sites (facebook, gmail, etc) suggest unique usernames for people by adding numbers to the end of the name, or other simple tricks. Don't do this. You want your name to be memorable, or unique. Random numbers don't have meaning, and in fact, point out th lack of creativity that you had in choosing your name.

It also should be one word, one string. Making it one word, consistently formatted together, helps search engines link all of your identities. You really, really want it all to come up in a single google search. This greatly helps you be found.

Should I use my real name?

I do.

For a while, I used two separate identities on forums and other sites requiring accounts or registration. 'foreignkid' represented me in realms that had no real world connections to me (GameDev, for instance- where I asked programming questions) and really had no intention of ever meeting or encountering anybody from the site in real life (though it does occasionally happen). 'leecbaker' represented me in places where I had real friends, who I contacted in the real world as well as on the internet (NMTORC, for instance). The initial motivation for this was to keep my real world identity a bit more of a secret on the internet. We all hear putting personal information on the internet is bad, right? Who needs my name anyway?

I thought about it for a while, and decided that putting my real name up wasn't bad. All sorts of people do it, and don't complain of having their identities stolen all the time, right? Richard Stallman, Linus Torvalds, Joel Spolsky, and many other internet semi-celebreties. Why can't I do the same? So, I decided to limit the amount of information I put on it. Name was OK, and since GMail/Google Apps has pretty good spam filtering, I put my email up a couple of places. A few years later, I've had no adverse affects of this, other than significantly increased spam (but only into my spam box!).

Later, as I got on through college, I put my resume up on a forum to ask for feedback. It had my real name, and was connected with my non-real-world identity- a breach of the firewall between Internet me and real me. It also let my phone number out into the wild, where useless data aggregators such as this guy have posted it up. And still, no adverse affects. No calls from crazy internet people- I think there are just too many phone numbers out there for anything bad to happen specifically just to me, but I also think that the partial protection of who can cold call me from US law helps a bit.

So, here we are. I have my username (leecbaker) tied to my real name (guess...) as well as my phone number, resume, and job history, with no ill effects (yet). The thing that ties all of this together is pretty important- I have a single string that ties together all of my identities across the internet. Search for me in Google by name ("Lee Baker"), and I think you'll find the first mention of me around result #73, but search for "leecbaker" and you'll find that I not only come up first, but result #37 is the first that isn't me. I have the first three pages of Google all to myself, which I think is a pretty good SNR, especially for how little is on my website. It actually pleasantly surprised me to find this out.

Here's a success story from the other side (of the should-I-use-my-name thing). A guy that I have occasionally collaborated with, w1zzard, of ATITool and TechPowerUP fame, doesn't really go by his name (which I hear is actually Michael). I know he lives in Stuttgart, and that we were in University at the same time, but really don't know much about him at the time. I think he just picked a cool sounding username with a unique twist (the 1), and stuck with it. He told me one time that he goes with w2zzard on the occasions where somebody has beat him to the punch, but I don't think it happens very often.

Gotchas

Of course, there are several gotchas. Make it professional, if you intend to use this identity for any business purpose, or if it is associated with your name. Don't try to steal somebody else's cool name that you saw somewhere- that's just unprofessional, and is likely to get you confused with somebody.

Cement yourself in now. The earlier on in the internet you cement yourself in (by using it!), the more likely that you will own that string. For instance, Richard Stallman (rms) has gotten his initials to represent him on the internet, mostly by just being on the internet since the beginning (though, the beard may help too).

Summary

The point of this wandering narrative is this- if you want to establish yourself on the internet, you have to give youself an identity. Its an identity that you can grab onto, that search engines can find, and that will work for a username everywhere you are. It's important that it is unique. Nobody else has 'leecbaker', and with how well it is established, I doubt anybody will take it (well, anybody significant at least).

I hope I've gotten the following across:

- Be unique

- Choose one that isn't heavily used (yet)

- It doesn't have to represent you, though it can

- Get one, while they're hot!