Sunday, April 13, 2008

What's in a name?

I woke up very early this morning which is unusual for me, given how late I went to bed. Maura and I interviewed a possible roommate yesterday for hours and spent the rest of the evening, into this morning, talking about this guy who found us on craigslist.

He was a nice guy; someone who, at face value, we feel comfortable not only cohabitating with, but leaving in charge of our property while we’re on the Vineyard for the summer. He filled out our rental application, complete with what I’m sure will be glowing references, and was very forthright about his life and issues. After he had gone though, I wanted more. I wanted to know what this dude was about. Figuring that someone like him who had contacted us online might have a presence on the web, I googled him.

Roomie has a not-so-common name yet one which he shares with an online poker player whose recent good fortunes have been much blogged about, thus monopolizing most of my search returns. On to his clever little screen name…

Ah, ha! There he is. Oh, and the crazy ex-girlfriend he told us about… And his photography work… And an old 2005 livejournal page. Yes!

Turns out, this guy is legit; or, at least his stories match up. Cool.

So, I woke up very early this morning thinking about web-presence, and what’s in a name. As infrequently as I post, I actually had sat down this morning to write a post about just that.

Wait, let me just check my mail and twitter… What’s this? Andrew Baron of Rocketboom is selling his twitter account on Ebay?!?

For Mr. Baron to do this raised a question for me that no one so far has touched in the couple of blogs I read about the Ebay offering. It points back to my morning’s musing: What’s in a name?

While I don’t think Andrew Baron is planning to rent a room in Pittsburgh anytime soon, I wonder if giving control of his prominent name on twitter to the highest bidder represents a liability to his web-presence or credibility; that is, should the buyer choose to keep his name. Could this impact him so negatively that the selling price would only cover a fraction of the reputation hit?

A commonly held and widely discussed (even in MSM) assumption is that what we do online is attached to us forever. My own anxiety associated with this assumption is a major cause for my lack of content or contributions to the community. Beyond the disappointment, and in some cases, outrage Andrew’s followers on Twitter have displayed, I don’t think that selling one’s name is a good idea.

As one who follows him, I don’t care if Andrew chooses to sell the account. In fact, I think people make too big a deal out of this, with comments like “I’m not for sale!”, or “you’re still my friend, but I can’t follow you anymore.” Why? I’m curious what might come out of the new @andrewbaron’s mouth! This has the potential to be a real version of the many faux-@chrisbrogans.

I’m not sure if anybody pays much attention to what @andrewsmith says, but I still want to make sure it’s me saying it. If roomie’s content had been objectionable for any reason, it could have been a deal breaker without him getting any chance to explain that he sold his name a couple of months back. We haven’t actually offered him the room yet.

You tell me: beyond the social implications, what effects might this have for someone who is trying to capitalize on their own notoriety?