I review a lot of different businesses for my various gigs, and I always find it absurd when a business doesn’t have a website. This is true for my personal life too: I don’t like going to a location blind anymore. I want to read the menu before I get there, I want to see pictures of the clothes they’re selling, I want to know who the CEO is.
It struck me today that this should also be true for people. Everyone should have just one website that acts as a hub for their internet presence. It should include all pertinent information about them: contact info, history (social, romantic and professional), services they provide, groups they’re in, other websites they’re active on. It should have photos of them and lists of references.
This is sort of what sites like MySpace are trying to do (but the Myspace format is so crappy that I refuse to believe they’re the final answer). Eventually, someone will succeed, and then everyone will have a page.
Imagine how our kids will think of dating. You wouldn’t consider going out with someone who didn’t have a webpage. How could you go blindly into a date without knowing basic stuff like who his friends are, where he went to school and what martial arts skills he has? No, you’ll want to log onto the Human Database and pull up his site to check him out first.
Yes, I see all the problems with this (privacy violations, further regulation of the delightfully unregulated internet, identity theft issues, etc.), and I don’t care. I want everyone to be instantly knowable from the comfort of my living room. And I want it now, so I don’t have to spend another hour tracking down this guy for my article.
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