The Widgetized Self
Distributed identity and the role of the engines
Anne Helmond

Who Am I?

I Am Distributed

Distributed identity

Constructing identity
online: The homepage
[...] home page authors engage in bricolage, adopting
and adapting borrowed material from the public
domain of the Web in the process of fashioning
personal and public identities. In such sites, what are
visibly ‘under construction’ are not only the pages
but the authors themselves. - Chandler(1998)

Identity under
construction

The personal
homepage
• Fairly static and closed self-referential
environment
• Content stored in one place
• Based on the unit of the page
• Required HTML knowledge