Effective from today, you can have your own personal address on Facebook.
Like: www.facebook.com/robertolofaro
If you read my previous postings (search for “
Yes, that does not sound so original.
But I think that politics is also the art of moving beyond the now and certain: we cannot just expect our politicians to produce legislation to regulate what is already obsolete.
And to move beyond regulating reality, you need to work on principles, not on facts.
And the new “personal address” of Facebook could allow to do a social experiment.
As I said to many of my younger (and, sometimes, older contacts): beware- anything that you post online, is there forever.
But my view is different: it is not the individual that has to check what (s)he posts online.
It is the individual, private or corporate, that has to learn that having access to some information does not imply using it, unless it is relevant.
A real world example: if you meet by chance, without being seen, somebody that you know professionally, and (s)he is let’s say few glasses beyond, or revealing a side of her/his character that you would not have expected, does that entitle you to spread the information around?
No, except if you are a compulsive gossiper 
So, if you are online, and your colleagues are online, why do you go around and have a look at their profile, if you do not meet them socially?
More relevant, is the case that I have been told more than once- of (mis)uses of Facebook, by colleagues and managers going online, and checking what their staff or prospective staff is doing.
I think that everybody agrees that, in most activities, it would be considered intolerable to have your boss getting in your kitchen to check what you are cooking- or checking what is inside the drinks that you drink.
Well, an online profile is exactly the same. At least, that’s my view.
I am an old immigrant/native (I was first punching cards in Fortran IV at 14, as an experiment, and I remember the worldwide chat sessions on the VAX that we had at the university, in 1984- when we were supposed working, and BBSes).
But when few years ago I joined social networks to complete my research, at first it was under an alias (aleph123), that is still my alias when writing.
Yes, most of the articles on this blog and elsewhere online are actually a “market test” of concepts that I am writing about- I get the feed-back, see how fast each articles is read, and so on
Why aleph? well, as a kid, I liked studying the evolution of alphabets, between other cultural anthropology-related issues, and aleph is the first letter.
I think that I do not need to explain why I chose then 123- to have something relatively unique (well, it seems that I am not the only one )
Eventually, I was invited on Facebook by a friend in London, right before it opened up to the general public (thanks, Sata).
And I decided to go with my own name- because you cannot understand/study online social networking if you do not belong there.
Luckily, I do not watch TV- actually, I do not have a TV: it is too passive, and overloaded with “reality” shows- also political debates are sometimes getting a “reality show” format.
Unbearable.
I moved into Facebook as a result of preliminary tests (I had 450 “friends” on stage6, and a 43 karma, built in few months by publishing movies and pictures and stories about travels, multimedia production, travels).
But anyway coming from a past that contained political experience- and if you see that as a kid, you see one point, repeated over and over.
Whatever a visible person (and online everybody is visible) says or writer, has to be consistent with the message that (s)he wants to deliver.
Therefore, I was going to post online only what I would say to, why not, pub friends or occasional acquaintances, but not what I was going to say to close friends- for that, I have my e-mail or personal site.
From today, if you were already a member before, you can add a /
Last year, to experiment with applications and online marketing (and integration between different online communities using OpenSocial, OpenID, FacebookConnect), I created another account, for my business activities, called PartnershipIncubator.com (like my startup support website).
Eventually, Facebook recognized that the e-mail address had the same name and surname but different domains, and changed the name of that account.
Well, from today, this is a benefit: I have now two personal Facebook profiles, one for myself and my personal (online or offline) friends, and one for my business contacts and friends.
Both are personal, not corporate profiles. If you want: the business one is like a humane version of my linkedin profile, where I can link people I chatted with, worked occasionally, but are not in my close business circle.
So, I am now (I will ignore the other online social networks where I have a profile, to keep it simple):
- a person: www.facebook.com/robertolofaro
- a business person: www.facebook.com/partnershipincubator or www.facebook.com/rlofaro
- a business network: www.linkedin.com/in/robertolofaro
The next step? See if I can convince people to stay the course.
If you are online in linkedin, you know that often you receive invitations from “professional networkers”- those people that have hundreds of contacts.
Because they post online all the business cards that they collect.
Well, that’s not my idea of the proper use of linkedin.
The linkedin profile is more for people I assume that can tell something about me business-wise. And viceversa. Not casual cocktail party contacts.
So, I will see if my experiment work.
Who knows: maybe Facebook could become a second linkedin, by allowing to separate public and personal life- and having people getting used to use/view the personal profile only for people that they meet socially, not professionally 
Have a nice day!
Tags: business, century, evolution, experiment, facebook, law, linkedin, personal, politics, privacy, profile, xxi