Recently my thoughts have been focused on presence. Presence of mind, presence of ideas, and presence of location to name just a couple of the ideas of presence that have raced through my head. The one idea that has been eluding me however is the idea of just presence: How am I shown and how am I known.
I've been doing a lot of things across different social networks lately. Sure some of the social networks are "Dating" sites, but then again that's another type of presence, right? During all of these networks I have tried very hard to interlink each system to another. My "Facebook" site knows about my "BoardGameGeek" site, which knows about my "GoodReads" site, which knows about my LinkedIn site and so on and so on. All in all I think that I have about 15 different sites that are out there with my information on them.
the importance of this for business
Now if you are a business looking to get a little more recognition in the world out there I think this is important. The more places that you link to one another the more chances you have to show up in searches and other lookups. With SEO being a big push out there more and more companies are looking for ways to stand out in the world of searching. Blogs and forums and things like that are good, but having only 2 locations where people can find you is not nearly as good as having multiple locations that people can find you.
Presence then becomes ... how much do I have in a world that isn't controlled by me? A couple little group notifications and other ideas can make the Internet work for you instead of you always butting your head against the wall. And since you have very little control about how frequently the Search Engines send their spiders out to search for you, this little trick might just give you a boost to being found a little easier.
the problem of this for personal
The Internet is literally riddled with information that people willingly divulge. Once you post it ... it's gone. And it is incredibly hard to stop it from being "known." So here is a problem. Don't put out information that you are not willing to have other people know about. Be careful with how, much information you share and with whom. There is nothing out there as a pure "Secure" anything. Servers are hosted by someone. Data is stored somewhere. If a site is asking you to share personal information, like a MyFamily.com, know that information is being stored somewhere and that people have access to it who aren't just you.
I want to make known here that I am a great supporter of MyFamily.com. And I really like the genealogical work that they are doing, but as a general warning to those Internet novices out there ... information has to be stored somewhere so it can be returned and displayed again.
in conclusion
I love the fact that there is a lot of information out there about me ... To an extent. I mean there are somethings that I want to keep personal, but even those are becoming more and more shared. And as long as more sites pop up that allow Closet Geeks/Nerds/Dweebs/Studs like me to join together with other like minded individuals, my "personal" will become more public. The reason why I like it is that you can Type "Enoch Chapman" into any number of search engines and most likely find me within 1 - 5 listings. This is great for when I release my Solo Album: "What I Like about Chess and other musical theater selections." or when I finally do start dating and get engaged to that special someone. Then I can tell everyone and see the world united for once. 
Man won't my mom be happy? I'm sure she'll blog about it somewhere ..... and I'll list it.