Digital Identity:
from Silos to
User-Centric
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Digital identity/Online Identity?
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Digital identity: Definition?
« Digital identity refers to the aspect of digital
technology that is concerned with the
mediation of people's experience of their own
identity and the identity of other people and
things. Digital identity also has another
common usage as the digital representation
of a set of claims made by one digital subject
about itself or another digital subject. »
– Wikipedia
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Online identity
« An online identity is a social identity that
network users establish in online
communities. »
– Wikipedia
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Online Identity: all about
• Self-representation
• Interaction
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Relevance for real people?
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Relevance for real people!
• Young people
– Part of their identity!
• Professionals
– reputation management
– Loss of context
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Your experience?
• MSN?
• Myspace?
• Facebook?
• Blogging?
• Twitter?
• Other social networks?
• OpenID?
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Online Identity Issues
• Social network fatigue
• Reputation jacking, disambiguation
• Security (lots of usernames/pswd's)
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It all hinges on usernames
and passwords...
• Transactions
– Yahoo Games
– Facebook applications
– Collaboration...
• permissions and authorizations
– Private posts
– Pictures for friends & Family
• Access (messaging)
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Silos and lock-in
• Identity exists within silo's
• Identity = local accounts
• Silo's want our attention/demographics data!
– New media: selling audiences to advertisers to
the individual level
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Silos and lock-in (2)
• \"The Social Graph\"
• Would-be platforms
– Facebook: applications via a proxy
– OpenSocial: embedding widgets and
javascript
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Silos and lock-in (3)
• Ownership?
• Interoperability?
• \"Digital Rights Movements\"
– Open Data
– Distributed Social networks
– DataPortability
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Objections to \"data portability\"
• Do you have the right to export your
friendlist?
• Closed social networks are succesfull
because they protect and provide that
context - relationships do not exist
outside context
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Efforts to connect the dots
• Only for _public_ data
• when providers allow it
• RSS and/or API
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Profile Aggregators
• Claimid
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Life Streaming
• Jaiku
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Mybloglog
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OpenID Demo: commenting
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OpenID Demo: joining
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OpenID and Identity
• Prove that you are who you are
• Trust? (no, everything is self-claimed)
• blog comments, forums...
• Export/reuse your social capital
• Typical use cases:
– bloggers
– second life
– ...
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OpenID as an \"account for the
web\" (website owner
perspective)
• 1 username/pswd
• attribute exchange
• you have millions of accounts already
(openid = useraccount for the web)
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OpenID and Access (to your
content and time)
• pre-approved accounts
• private posts
• whitelisting and xfn
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Multiple identies
• Dating
• Professional
• Hobby
• Fantasy
• Be Aware!
– Pictures!
– Profile Matching...
– Real names (Facebook!)
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\"User-centric\" identity and you
• Do not try to build the next social network, be part of the existing
network
• UGC: \"What's in it for me\"
– Quotable
– Linkable
– Under their control
• Offer OpenID as login option
– OpenID is now what RSS was 4 years ago
– Used by highly active -> highly influential users
• Be present in silos to develop your own Real Estate
– Low threshold to user feedback
– Social Marketing
– Content Distribution
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Who am I?
• http://pascal.vanhecke.info
• http://weblog.vanhecke.info
• http://links.vanhecke.info
• http://www.linkedin.com/in/pascalvanhe
cke
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