ON MYSPACE AND REPUTATIONAL MORTALITY

SLIPPERY SLOPE AHEAD...

(Update Below)

It's interesting how MySpace, and it's more grown-up counterpart Facebook, have become the holy grail of Internet trends.  Every geek over 35 (investor or not), is desperately trying to "get it" in recent months.  (For a candid expression of this fear, see this great post by Russell Beattie from a few weeks ago).

At almost every tech-oriented conference or confab I've been to recently, the organizers have paraded onto stage a teenager and/or twenty-something for the rest of the audience to poke and prod at with questions on what makes these services so addictive for their peers. 

The "kids" in turn look as comfortable on the stage as any species out of it's traditional habitat gazing warily back at the hungry looking crowd.

And the conclusion afterwards of almost everyone attending those sessions seems to be that while they may not quite "get it", they don't want to miss the trend in the context of their business, whatever it might be.

Many of these kind folks are parents as well, so they're naturally curious about these services in that personal context as well.  There are also the growing concerns by parents that these services are attracting people with predatory and deviant motives.

Some parents are like Fred Wilson and his wife Gotham Gal, who come away with a more balanced view of the dangers that these services pose. 

Then there is this post in Chartreuse, equating the potential dangers of these services with other relatively risky activities when they were that age, like biking. 

And while I can empathize with the argument, it does seem that these services can pose a unique reputational risk for the kids longer-term.  As Scott Karp of Publishing 2.0 puts it:

"...none of their coming-of-age mistakes has a permanent digital record."

BusinessWeek Online has a good piece highlighting these potential dangers.  An excerpt:

"Googling people is also becoming a way for bosses and headhunters to do continuous and stealthy background checks on employees, no disclosure required.

Google is an end run around discrimination laws, inasmuch as employers can find out all manner of information -- some of it for a nominal fee -- that is legally off limits in interviews: your age, your martial status, the value of your house (along with an aerial photograph of it), the average net worth of your neighbors, fraternity pranks, stuff you wrote in college, liens, bankruptcies, political affiliations, and the names and ages of your children."

I grew up in a corporate culture over almost quarter of a century, that highlighted the importance of not engaging in any communication with the outside world that would be embarrassing for the individual and/or the firm to see in the Wall Street Journal the next day. 

In those days this applied of course to snail mail and all traditional forms of written communication, but now of course covers email, blogging and every eventual mode of digital communication.

Teenagers and college kids of course don't have the advantage of this warning, and if they do, are too convinced of their reputational immortality to worry otherwise. 

And it's not just about their behavior on services like MySpace and Facebook, but their conduct all across the web, including services like instant messaging, SMS texting and the like.  They are leaving reputational footprints that in many cases will be a matter of permanent record, potentially increasing their reputational mortality.

So it's an important distinction for us to keep in mind, and whenever appropriate, try and get them to "get it".

Update:

Kareem Mayan has an optimistic and relevant riposte to the worries I and Scott Karp discuss in our respective posts.  He says:

"In the context that Michael and Scott Karp are talking about, reputational mortality doesn't matter.  It's a pre-1.0 attidude.

The notion of privacy, as it existed pre-1994, is done. 

I doubt most teens get this, but it ultimately doesn't matter, because everybodythe world North America in 20-30 years is leaving reputational footprints about themselves all over the grid..." 

"But also know that the more your post about yourself online, the fuller the picture you can paint about yourself, and the more people you will reach."

It's a valid point, but likely will take half a generation or more to be incorporated into the DNA of mainstream folks. 

Just like with attitudes on race and gender, throwing privacy caution to the winds will take time to change. 

The other point to note is that no matter how accepting the "real world" becomes of a person's life-time footprints on the "grid", individuals will always need to keep some control of how they "strike a pose", to quote Madonna.

Let me explain.  We all need to strike a pose, for acquaintances, employers, prospective employees, potential mates, friends, enemies, etc., constantly through life. 

We've been learning to do this since childhood.  Much of what goes on MySpace and Facebook, is just that...constantly changing "poses" as the kids grow in emotional maturity and gain experience in life. 

Even though we all will lose more of our privacy online  (and on the grid) over time, we will still need to figure out how we balance the need to "reach more people" as Kareem puts it, and the ability to have some control over the "contextual pose" we need to strike.

A lot of learning is ahead for all of us, both young and old.  In the meantime,  both some caution and guarded optimism are likely in order.

Comments

[kareem]

Michael, agreed re: guarded optimism. I've been reading a lot of one-sided hang-wringing lately about the privacy implications of MySpace, etc--your post excepted.

Two things occur to me: first, if this is the trend, and it seems clear to me that it is, then let's learn how to make it work for us rather than decrying The State of Things.

And second, most of this conversation is irrelevant, really, because many of the folks who should be reading it are too busy updating their MySpace profiles and living life!

Kareem

BTW, I think the copy-and-paste from my blog got butchered... here's the full quote: "I doubt most teens get this, but it ultimately doesn't matter, because everybody who will be running North America in 20-30 years is leaving reputational footprints about themselves all over the grid."

[kareem]

You updated again! :)

I remember a great discussion from a couple years back about how to manage showing different personas (you & Madonna call them poses :) on a blog. What a lot of bloggers ended up doing, myself included, was to display the side we were most comfortable showing to anybody and everybody... in other words, the lowest common denominator.

The challenge will certainly be managing contextual poses in the future (and it is now, too). I don't think the tension will ever be resolved, as the side I show to my friends is different from the side I show to coworkers which is different from the side I show to my parents. But by making lots of information about me available out there, it becomes easier to paint a fuller picture of who I really am.

So if a future employer finds the stupid college pics, they can also easily find the writings on product management from last week, and the photos of me hanging out with my little cousins.

The alternative is that if I don't put the rest of my life online, then the employer only finds the stupid college pics... and it's obvious which situation is better to be on.

k.

[chartreuse]

Nice, reasoned post.

I disagree that we should be worried though.
We adults are fortunate to be around as society is changing. The things we care about, i.e. reputations,etc. have different meanings for todays youth.

Just like we don't lose sleep if we see someone gay, involved in interacial marriages, or some other 'taboo' our parents would freak out about, todays kids have a different veiw of the world, privacy and reputation.

That doesn't make it dangerous or wrong. It's just different.