Giving yourself an identity on the Web

Many people dismiss the Internet as a second rate environment for communication because of the lack of visual or auditory clues. What they ignore is that judgments in the environment of the Internet are made on quite a different basis to those in the physical world. Certainly there are no facial expressions to read, or appearances to go by, but, in the environment of the Internet these are replaced by a far more efficient medium: the Web site.

Anyone with any serious intention of using the Internet for business will have to have their own Web site:­ the address of which they will probably include with their signature at the bottom of all email correspondences. This is their identity. It plays the same role in Internet communications as physical appearance and "getting to know you" conversations do in the everyday world. Just as people in the physical world will judge a person initially by visual appearance, how they speak and how they act, so, in the environment of the Internet, a person will be judged by their Web site.

The logic is simple: in the environment of the Internet there are millions of people it is possible to choose from to communicate with. To be able to take advantage of this vastness of choice, there is no time to visit them all and use conventional ways to judge them. A method has to be found to make a rapid assessment: to ascertain whether or not somebody's opinion can be taken seriously or whether or not they are going to provide a competitive value for the limited time available for communication.

This may seem a cynical and inhuman way to view the world, but, this isn't the world of bricks and mortar: it is the world of high connectivity and infinite multiple choice. It is a world where associations needn't be based upon a broad range of characteristics, but, can be confined to very narrow and specific areas. This is not intuitive. In the bricks and mortar world, where contact and communication are difficult to come by, relationships have to encompass a range of different considerations. In the world of the Internet, co-operation can be based upon strictly limited areas of mutual interest. This greatly improves the efficiency of communications.

Efficiency is important because the criteria of co-operative relationships that matter, such as truthfulness, reliability, honesty, credibility or any other kind of trait that might affect the value of an association, can only be ascertained during a suitably long series of tit-for-tat communications. This takes time and effort, so, establishing a worthwhile relationship is not entered into lightly. This is why a Web site can be of great benefit, because it can provide an initial basis for deciding to begin a process of establishing a co-operative association.

It should be appreciated that throw-away relationships are a wasteful and inefficient use of Internet communication time. Valuable relationships develop gradually, based upon a growing mutual trust. This is no different from the world of bricks and mortar, where caution is exercised before giving trust and care is taken not to become vulnerable to any hurtful defections. But, once trust is established, both sides will have will have gained a valuable asset. Building up an association slowly creates stable relationships because only a fool would defect on a relationship that has taken time to develop.