The Internet has become
such a part of daily life for millions of people world-wide and serves as many reasons and purposes as there are people
using it. I have personally been ‘online’ since about 1990 or
thereabouts and have been an active participant in various interactive forums and other social networking sites since
about 1993.
The one thing that all of
them have in common is the ‘profile’ or ‘info’ page, it’s called different things; depending
on the site you’re using. I can remember back when I first became a part
of the online community and ventured into the AOL Chat Rooms, ‘public rooms’ at first. But then as friends are made and relationships are built, some of us created ‘private chat rooms’
where you have to be ‘invited’ in order to enter. While it’s
been a lot of years since I’ve associated with these chat rooms, either public or private, I can still remember with
hilarity how we would all immediately check out that ‘new’ persons profile to see what they had to say about themselves.
While I suppose they were
originally intended to represent a persons ‘identity’ online, that intent was obscured through the fact that these
so called ‘profiles’ were not very unique to say the least. They
all asked pretty much the same silly questions, giving the person the same cookie cutter choices for answers; none of it really
providing any useful or realistic information on which to base a friendship on any level.
Not to mention that there were some questions that I didn't think should have been asked in the first place.
After awhile it was pretty
easy to see that the greater majority of them were created to reflect how that individual wanted you to see them, which was
all too often not the reality. However, as time passed and through my own
involvement with specific sites, I began to see some beneficial aspects of providing a profile.
Finally, about three maybe
four years ago when I first became associated with MySpace, I decided to ‘revamp’ so to speak my own online profile. MySpace and a few other sites began making it possible for individuals to enter a
link for their personal web sites and I decided to essentially capitalize on this new aspect by creating what would become
my ‘‘permanent’ or ‘official’ profile. Rather than complete their 'fill in the blanks'
standard profiles, I simply inserted my own, personally created profile via my own web site.
Retracing my steps so to
speak, returning to the various sites that I was still an active participant, I reviewed the different questions they asked
and chose the specific ones that I actually thought were applicable to me. In
doing so I also found that I had more control not just over the answers I could provide but the questions themselves. I personally refuse to answer the stereotypical questions that provided equally stereotypical
‘yes’, ‘no’ , ‘maybe’, 'I don't know'
or 'prefer not to answer' choices.
This was important to me
because I do not believe that people are designed to neatly fit into specific little holes on a given board. We are all very different and unique and I personally like it that way.
Although the creation of
this web site, to include the content may appear to be in direct contradiction, I actually am quite zealous in protecting
myself here in Cyber Space. It is incredible the number of people who really
do not fully comprehend the actual scope of the Freedom of Information Act.
The unfortunate reality
is that the greater majority of the information posted on this site can in fact be located through a simple public search
and for a fee all of it and more will be provided to you in writing. With the
exception of material that falls into the category of "personal opinion" pretty much all of it is considered by law to
be ‘public information’ regardless of what we may think or how we feel about it. Then again even the 'personal
opinion' part can still be found out there in Cyber Space as well, depending on deep someone chooses to search.
My personal reasoning behind
the creation of this site has as much to do with individuality as it does the wide variety of security and privacy settings
on each given site. More specifically concerning the lack of personal control
over too many of those settings in most cases.
Not to mention the interesting
fact that if for whatever reason, a person would Google my name in any of it's forms such as with or without my current married
name; they'll get a listing of somewhere around 4,532 (at last count) people with the same name. Try it sometime; you’ll be fascinated as to what the results are for your own name.
Did you know that your Facebook
content does in fact appear on Google? Not just the fact that you have a Facebook Page either. Try Googling you
home address some time, you'll find that interesting as well.
Thus this site will be something
that is continuously growing and evolving as I continue to be part of various interactive sites.
