One of the most valuable parts of an online identity is the attention you receive from other people. Social networks make getting attention more efficient. In this way, proprietary tools do a lot to enrich your online identity.
For me, this is a great tradeoff. For example, I'm happy to put my pictures on Facebook because my family and friends see those pictures and leave comments that I enjoy. In comparison, my local copies feel like those dusty old photo albums in my parents' basement that nobody ever opens.
As he mentions in the post, this is from one of the creators of Tumblr, who's elevator pitch at this point is "a social network that gives users control of their identity". It is one of the easiest ways for someone to practice what he's preaching.
Still, the people who are converting everything over to Google+ aren't crazy (well, they are a little bit, no search and no RSS is kinda a big deal). The design of G+, particularly the permalink pages, does a good job of making the first thing you see the actual content, not the fact that it is on G+.
'owning it' doesn't mean your own domain. you are only leasing that domain name until you either no longer pay for it or the government in control feels you no longer deserve access to it.
While you hit on a genuine problem, there are far fewer legal barriers to Google, Facebook, Twitter or Microsoft terminating your account than for US ICE to seize your .com and .org; ICE needs a warrant for seizure and more to retain indefinitely. Further, you can always get a non U.S. domain, e.g. .ch (Swiss) as used by Wikileaks.
That's a little sensationalist, don't you think? What are the chances "the government" takes away your domain name? It's happened to an incredibly small percentage of domain-owners, I would guess.
It's not just individuals that need to own their identity. I work with small businesses and have helped numerous clients move from @aol.com or @hotmail.com addresses to their own domains. And it's not just businesses, either. I have worked in third-world countries and seen governments print "[email protected]" on official documents.
The only reason I don't own my identity online is that I've been too cheap to pay for domain registration. And that's an ever less meaningful excuse.
Take his arguments farther and you reach Eben Moglen's (co-creator of free software licenses) goal of the FreedomBox, which would enable all to own all their data currently in the cloud.
The project is getting started. It's bold and far-reaching, but so was a free encyclopedia anyone could edit. This page http://wiki.debian.org/FreedomBox gives more background and the videos it links to are inspirational.
If you agree with owning your identity, you may like what you read.
Hotmail addresses are indeed notorious for their lack of permanence. Last time I checked, if you do not log in for 270 days, your account is deleted, and your username is up for grabs. [1] If somebody else were to come along and take your username, they could easily gain access to your passwords that can be restored restored via e-mail, as well as your whole online identity.
Going on a tangent, but hotmail is really good nowadays. My non-serious-mail-from-friends account is on hotmail, and it's as good as gmail, a bit better in some stuff and a bit worse in others.
- Non-webmail access: exchange-push protocol for smart phones, POP3 (aka Inbox-only), Outlook/OutlookExpress-only access (using, I presume, private APIs).
- If you decide to move your identity off of hotmail, you can't disable spam filtering, which combined with basically POP3-only access means you are forced to login to check you spam folder. At least with Gmail/GoogleApps you can use IMAP to automatically check/sync your spam folder, even though you can't turn off the filtering. The only plus here is that you can dial down the spam filter slightly, which you can't do on Google.
- Since access is POP3 only, the only way to export all of your email is to move all of it into your Inbox and pull it down (or alternate between moving a folder in and pulling it down, then sorting it on the other end back into folders).
There are three (or 4) areas of action links on the page, to ensure that I never remember where the print button or Reply all button is.
It regularly junks emails from lists I'm subscribed to, apparently hitting "not junk" is not enough to mark it safe for next time?
The login page has a session that can expire - if I haven't logged in within five minutes of opening the login page, I get thrown backwards again for session expiration. Sometimes I consider not bothering attempting to re-log in.
Yeah, hotmail just has a bad reputation because it was pretty average for a time, so people look down on others when they give out their @hotmail email address. I use it, mainly because it was what everyone used back when I created in high school. I have a gmail to but at my volume of email never really felt compelled to totally switch over.
Perhaps hotmail is fine. but to be honest, coming from the AIM generation, the biggest gmail pull for me is the fact that all my previous aim buddies are now on google chat. You might be able to tell me to move on, but i still love just siting down and doing the old "what are u doing, what are u doing" checking of statuses, that I grew up doing every day in high school and college... yeah FB and twitter took some of that, but I tend to have smaller, tighter circles of friends, and g-chat is still one of the best ways I keep up with close friends (fb and twitter are more "aquantiences" than friends u could say) now scattered all over the globe. And they are all there. game. set. match. google.
I still have a hotmail account that I check periodically, and while it may be ok in IE, it's a terrible experience in Chrome. All the AJAX interface is really slow to the point where you can easily end up deleting messages that aren't even the message that you're currently viewing. I have no idea how it is in Firefox, but, I don't care enough about my Hotmail account to bother using a different browser for it.
How about using the Tumblr2Wordpress tool by WooThemes? Granted, it's not the best thing but it would keep your data and you'd be able to migrate to a solution that's easily self-hosted.
I wonder if TLD's will ever be perceived as government lock-in e.g. bit.ly, ow.ly, 3.ly are at the whims of Libya and yourname.com is subject to US legislation and enforcement. Great post and 100% agree.
Unfortuantely, we are all very vulnerable to malfeasance by governments, especially our own. Governments have done far worse things to their citizens than revoke their domains.
That is almost a counter example though, he has 32000 people in circles while g+ is still quiet limited. If g+ was to go away he could easily redirect the domain and build his core following back up fairly quickly.
This of course is a lot different for say a company that has worked very hard building up something like a Facebook following that while susceptible to marketing messages aren't likely to go out of their way to follow the company to whatever online presences they create.
[+] [-] BenS|14 years ago|reply
For me, this is a great tradeoff. For example, I'm happy to put my pictures on Facebook because my family and friends see those pictures and leave comments that I enjoy. In comparison, my local copies feel like those dusty old photo albums in my parents' basement that nobody ever opens.
[+] [-] BrianBerk|14 years ago|reply
Still, the people who are converting everything over to Google+ aren't crazy (well, they are a little bit, no search and no RSS is kinda a big deal). The design of G+, particularly the permalink pages, does a good job of making the first thing you see the actual content, not the fact that it is on G+.
[+] [-] starnix17|14 years ago|reply
[+] [-] nikcub|14 years ago|reply
[+] [-] mapgrep|14 years ago|reply
[+] [-] edanm|14 years ago|reply
[+] [-] kiba|14 years ago|reply
[+] [-] russnewcomer|14 years ago|reply
The only reason I don't own my identity online is that I've been too cheap to pay for domain registration. And that's an ever less meaningful excuse.
[+] [-] a3_nm|14 years ago|reply
The only identity that you can really own is an asymmetric encryption key, but it won't allow people to find you.
[+] [-] zobzu|14 years ago|reply
additionally, ive always worried about the fact that the dns registar generally own your dns and just let you use it for a fee.
[+] [-] spodek|14 years ago|reply
The project is getting started. It's bold and far-reaching, but so was a free encyclopedia anyone could edit. This page http://wiki.debian.org/FreedomBox gives more background and the videos it links to are inspirational.
If you agree with owning your identity, you may like what you read.
[+] [-] dvdhsu|14 years ago|reply
Hotmail addresses are indeed notorious for their lack of permanence. Last time I checked, if you do not log in for 270 days, your account is deleted, and your username is up for grabs. [1] If somebody else were to come along and take your username, they could easily gain access to your passwords that can be restored restored via e-mail, as well as your whole online identity.
---------------
1. http://www.redd.it/ej321
[+] [-] svat|14 years ago|reply
[+] [-] Fargren|14 years ago|reply
[+] [-] pyre|14 years ago|reply
+ Your contacts are easily exportable
- Non-webmail access: exchange-push protocol for smart phones, POP3 (aka Inbox-only), Outlook/OutlookExpress-only access (using, I presume, private APIs).
- If you decide to move your identity off of hotmail, you can't disable spam filtering, which combined with basically POP3-only access means you are forced to login to check you spam folder. At least with Gmail/GoogleApps you can use IMAP to automatically check/sync your spam folder, even though you can't turn off the filtering. The only plus here is that you can dial down the spam filter slightly, which you can't do on Google.
- Since access is POP3 only, the only way to export all of your email is to move all of it into your Inbox and pull it down (or alternate between moving a folder in and pulling it down, then sorting it on the other end back into folders).
[+] [-] tim_iles|14 years ago|reply
There are three (or 4) areas of action links on the page, to ensure that I never remember where the print button or Reply all button is.
It regularly junks emails from lists I'm subscribed to, apparently hitting "not junk" is not enough to mark it safe for next time?
The login page has a session that can expire - if I haven't logged in within five minutes of opening the login page, I get thrown backwards again for session expiration. Sometimes I consider not bothering attempting to re-log in.
Perhaps I've just been spoilt by Gmail.
[+] [-] naner|14 years ago|reply
I hope you're joking. Live Mail (which subsumed Hotmail) is atrocious, the interface sucks. Live Mail also doesn't do a good job of catching spam.
The only thing worse I've used interface-wise is Yahoo! Mail.
[+] [-] robryan|14 years ago|reply
[+] [-] ImprovedSilence|14 years ago|reply
[+] [-] ctide|14 years ago|reply
[+] [-] masnick|14 years ago|reply
This makes it not viable as a blogging platform for me.
[+] [-] rglover|14 years ago|reply
[+] [-] rwolf|14 years ago|reply
[+] [-] there|14 years ago|reply
[+] [-] mmaunder|14 years ago|reply
[+] [-] qq66|14 years ago|reply
[+] [-] william42|14 years ago|reply
[+] [-] mise|14 years ago|reply
[+] [-] khafra|14 years ago|reply
[+] [-] kefs|14 years ago|reply
[+] [-] robryan|14 years ago|reply
This of course is a lot different for say a company that has worked very hard building up something like a Facebook following that while susceptible to marketing messages aren't likely to go out of their way to follow the company to whatever online presences they create.