Online Prescence

Today I found myself logging into four different online services while eating breakfast. Four! It started with logging into my bank account online so I could see where my balance stood after another weekend of wedding preparations so I could find out how much I could spend on lunch today. After finding out I can order a couple things off of the McDonald's dollar menu and drink form the water fountain at work I logged in to my MySpace and Facebook profiles. Being so socially involved in the world I feel the need to be a member of the two most popular social networks because one is simply not enough, even though I am friends with the same people (more or less) on both services. Do I need two separate profiles? After that it was a weekly visit to the Yahoo! Groups forums to check in on the Kappa Kappa Psi - Lambda Delta list serve to see if there were any posts about an outing over the weekend.

This is when I started to think to myself, "Self, exactly how many different online memberships do you have and why can't you have just one place to find them all?" I found it hard to answer myself because I honestly did not even know how many places I had online registrations for. This to me, is just the way of life. As the internet becomes more and more a part of our everyday lives I am sure that many people may find themselves in the same boat as myself, juggling passwords and login names from site to site.

There are software titles out there that will help you keep everything straight, unless you use the same user name and password for every service or forum. I admit I use the same user name as much as possible but I change my passwords dependant on the site I'm visiting. I have no idea how I keep them all straight in my head. It probably is an effect of playing Nintendo so much when I was younger and memorizing the Konami code and passwords and maze paths for so many games.

Here is a list of all of my online profiles for you to view. I'll be sure to add more as they surely come along, or I find the old ones that I've forgotten about. These things add up pretty fast!

MySpace - My first forray into the social networking aspect of the world wide web.
Facebook - Once I realized more of my MySpace friends were using Facebook, I decided to make the switch, so to speak.
Flickr - This is a social networking site and online photo album all in one. I love how you can pinpoint on a map where your pictures were taken.
FanNation - MySpace meets Sports Illustrated.
AskVille - I just wrote about this service in my recent blog post.
ebay - Here is my novice "About me" page on eBay.
Amazon - My profile for Amazon, featuring the link to my wonderful review of Mike Schmidt's Clearing the Bases. I had a wish list on there but recently deleted it. I do plan on bringing it back before the summer is up (so people can start birthday shopping for me!)
YouTube - there was a time when I anticipated actually uploading some videos to YouTube. That hasn't materialized, but I do have a profile page!

That is all I can dig up at the moment because those are the most common ones I use. When it comes to online forums, or message boards, I can rattle off a few that I have visited in my internet browsing history...
Philadelphia Phillies
Philadelphia Eagles
D2football.com - fans of NCAA division two football
DigitPress - Gaming forum for retro game enthusiasts (NES, Genesis, SNES etc.) and collectors

And I am sure there are plenty more out there that escape my internal cache right now.

It doesn't stop there either. Many companies are forming their own online services where you can log in to their site, register your products and view online documentation, receive special offers, and receive online support in addition to other features. My favorite feature that both SanDisk and Black & Decker offer me is a way of viewing the products that I own by these companies. SanDisk allows me to view my "eBox" so I can see what items I have registered with them. When I view my eBox I see that I have registered my Sansa e250 and a 1GB Memory Stick PRO Duo. If I click on either item I can see all of the specs for the item, download the documentation for it, and access a FAQ. In some cases, as is the case for my Sansa player, I can download updated drivers and browse the accessories that are designed specifically for my player. With Black & Decker I can view a similar area, called "My Toolbox". When I go there I can check out my cordless screwdriver in all of its glory. Nintendo has the same feature as well. Every game or system comes with a little piece of paper with a code on it. You use that to register your game with your Nintendo profile so you can keep an online database of the Nintendo products you own. Those codes also allow you to get special downloads for your game, such as wallpaper, movies and cursors for your computer.

So, in a nutshell I think I can be found on an internet territory near you. I'm sure some of you can claim to be much more of an internet roamer so you probably have profiles here and profiles there. Take a minute to look through exactly how many forums you are associated with. Then take a step back and take a deep breath. It really can be overwhelming. Think identity theft can not happen to you? Maybe once you look at all of your outlets on the internet you may think twice about it.