What We Share Reflects Back Upon Our Identity

Fred Stutzman: “When we use social software, we often employ the software to share. I employ this blog to share my knowledge and try to sound smart. You may share your last.fm playlist to show people that you are a connoisseur of good music. Someone else may share a particular set of bookmarked links in del.icio.us so that their fans can be kept informed of information. Yet another person might join a pool in flickr to share photos that they think are of interest to that particular community. The common thread in all of these examples, and almost all examples in social software, is that what we share reflects back upon our identity.”

This article reconciles for me a lot of the issues I was having with social software and, separately, online communities. Social software, for the most part, is about sharing, and Fred makes a distinction between consumptive and productive activities, and argues that we can turn the latter into the former by sharing what we consume. I'm not so sure that we achieve balance between the two by sharing, but at least it puts to rest, in my mind, at least a little, the belief that these consumptive activities are purely consumptive.