My Digital Life
Just Stuff 10 Comments »What are your Online Presence, Digital Footprint and your online Lifestream? Increasingly our lives are connected to others, and by others, through the wired online world. These connections make up our online presence, digital footprint and our online lifestream. Could you go for one month without access to the web? One week? One day?
We all have an online presence. The digital artifacts about you and your life that can be found on the web through simple searches. By doing a simple Google search or a search of 123People Search you can find some of your current online presence. But this may not to be the entire picture.
A person’s “digital footprint” reflects how he or she actively participates in the digital universe, including use of the Internet and social networks, e-mail, cell phones, digital cameras and credit cards. Half of a person’s digital footprint is related to his or her individual actions, and the other half accounts for the so-called “digital shadow.” (John Gantz, IDC) Who is creating this shadow and what does it say about us?
Lifestreams are also referred to as social activity streams or social streams. These can include social networks (Facebook, Ning), blogs, Microblogs (Twitter), Instant Messaging (IM). Social network aggregators can collect and display your various lifestreams in one place. This can be thought of as your own personal RSS aggregator. Where could we find your lifestreams? How many unique streams do you have?
In this increasingly connected world we must be aware of and take care of our own personal lifestreams. I wonder what can be said about us through our digital footprint, digital shadow, and our various lifestreams?