Naturally,I had the same idea as what was in this post, let’s see if I can find related sites using the twitter sites as a starting point. Why not use the Google graph API…

The other trick to check if X on network A is the same as Y on network B is to check lifestreaming aggregators (claimid probably counts as sort of one), the famous of which is friendfeed.

Would it surprise you to know that these methods weren’t too successful? The later was marginally better.

But what was the easiest method? Using http://namechk.com/ and similar services. This counts on the fact that people tend to use the same username across the web.

I’ve being very quick to sign up for web2.0 accounts so basically every account that allows only one aarontay is me (some accounts are me, but i lost the password!).

But this doesn’t solve the problem since there are multiple people wanting to own the same username. I noticed for example ebscohost having to settle for a variant of their name on youtube :)

Basically if library vendors are not using such technologies to identify themselves, chances are few are doing so.

I would add that libraries since 2006 began opening web accounts all over the place, while chances of a “name collision” are less, you would still need some means of identifying real accounts.

I’ve being blogging pieces like “libraries on twitter”, “libraries on friendfeed”, “libraries on google profiles” , while my latest post was trying to identify libraries on getsatisfaction, yelp, uservoice.

I would add finding if a certain library is on a certain service is not easy :)

I think we will see more and more that googlegangers are actually imposters – for various reasons – to spy on someone else, to amuse oneself, to ruins someones professional or personal life… but yeah, that’s another bag of worms as well.

*I’d imagine that managing identity was a different problem pre-internet. It was all about the personal relationships, the gossip, the “what are people saying about me.” That operated in a limited sphere, that has exploded with increasing online visibility, search engines, etc.

*I’m honestly not sure what the opportunities are for most librarians. I think, from an academic standpoint, there is something very important to be said for scholars/faculty to consider the image found of them online and how they might best gather their content and reactions to their content so as to best display it to potential colleagues, students, deans, media (to be one of those “experts”).

*Love to term “googleganger”.

*Validity and “real” identity are a whole other bag of worms. Something that I hope to take up in another post.

*Like anything else these semantic links add a tool to the repertoire. In this case linking and online aggregation can help raise search results in relevancy. Having some kind of home page to aggregate your content and differentiate yourself can help people know who is who. Or at least help people know who you are not.

*Thanks for the reading suggestions. I’ll check them out.

* Is this need to manage identity unique to twenty-first online life? Have non-famous people had to worry about stuff like this before?

* What opportunities do you think librarians will have to really work with patrons on these kinds of images?

* Name confusion can be fun. I’m Twitter friends with my favorite googleganger, a London bass player named Steve Lawson (of course), and I sometimes pass along direct messages or replies that came to me that are meant for him. And I believe there was a “League of Steve Lawson” group on Facebook for a while.

* I think about the validity and verifiability of identity online when a “famous” person comments on my blog. Aside from checking the IP address from where the comment was posted and emailing an externally-verified email address for that person, there’s no good way to know if it really is Michael Gorman descending from Mt. Olympus to comment.

* I have very little confidence in this semantic web stuff. And I don’t know that ClaimID or microformats or whatever are going to be much help to the casual web searcher trying to determine which Emily he’s found. That could just be my lack of imagination.

* Lastly, I was happy to be present at an Internet Librarian preconference session when Iris Jastram talked about a similar topic. I think Iris has written about identity management too, but you could do worse that to read Jenica Rogers-Urbanek’s notes on Iris’s talk.