I recently put together a profile on About.me and I suggest you take a look at it if you have multiple social identity disorder. But why—isn't it another social profile to manage? Well ironically yes, it is. However, in my opinion it serves a function. Come to my blog and I'm throwing around some pretty niche content that can seem a bit foreign to a first time visitor. Stumble upon my Twitter profile and I'm sharing links and chatting with a bunch of folks. Go to my Flickr or YouTube account and there's media without a lot of context.
The point is that this makes a bunch of complex things simple. I compared it to an introduction to a stranger. You wouldn't walk up to someone you didn't know and begin speaking out of context would you? My friend Jeremiah Owyang disagrees. He says:
"I think in your case it's not really needed (an introduction). Folks know you for your work and thought leadership in your blog."
I'm not so sure. I'm known to a few people yes—but the Web is a big place. Maybe it's not this particular service, maybe it's something else—but as I opined in my 2011 trends, we'll all feel a bit more social media schizophrenia in the years to come. And when that happens, a simple introduction can go a long way.
