Throughout the years, many sites have attempted to organize our online identities. There are people search tools like Spock, Naymz, and Rapleaf, to name a few that can locate your profile across the web and display for others to see. More recently, lifestreaming services like FriendFeed, SocialThing, or Profilactic act as homes to your online identity. These social media aggregators to combine your web profiles in one spot and stream your activity in near real-time. But if you just want a simple way to introduce yourself via an online profile, there really hasn't been a great way to do so except for putting up an "About Me" page on your personal web site.
Today, though, you'll finally have a new option for sharing who you are with the rest of the world: MeeID.com. This simple web app is easy, straightforward, and entirely customized by you.
]]> Introducing MeeIDMeeID is such a simple application that it hardly needs an explanation. You just go to the web site, sign up for an account and create your profile. Your profile consists solely of a photo you upload and 10 lines (which can be links). That's it. That's your MeeID.
You can see an example MeeID below:
In the above example, Bronson used MeeID to link to his profile on various sites, his online resume, and other sites of interest. However, that's just one way to use this service. MeeID suggests several other ideas, including using MeeID to list your top ten goals, using it to list your contact information like an online business card, putting it in your email signature, and more. We personally like their suggestion of forwarding a custom domain name to the site (Finally, a use for .name URLs?)
Making a MeeID
A search box on the site lets you search the MeeIDs of other users. It found mine by username (sarahintampa) and first name (Sarah), but couldn't locate me when I entered first name and last (Sarah Perez). That could be an issue. We can't be expected to know people's usernames in order to locate their MeeIDs and a one name search query could return an overwhelming number of results once the site becomes more heavily used. Just image having to search for a "John," "Bill," or any other common name in order to locate your friend's MeeID!
Favorites
You can also save your favorite MeeIDs which are then available as a drop-down from the top of the page. Others visiting your profile can view these, too. Although it's understandable that they're trying to keep the app simple, the fact that they limit you to only ten favorites may mean we'll have to make some hard choices in the future as to who gets to appear in that list.
Ads
MeeID is sponsored by advertisers that choose to pay to have their links display beneath every person's MeeID on the site. At launch time, three sponsors were showing: AmberMac, Death Cab For Cutie, and Wired Magazine. The ad is beneath your info and really not that intrusive, so if it helps pay the bills, we're OK with that.
Simple = Good
Overall, MeeID is a nifty little app and one that can be used by anyone - not just social media addicts like ourselves. It doesn't do much, but it doesn't really have to. Sometimes a simple app is just what you need. And it's so easy that anyone can understand how to use it in minutes to quickly claim their place on the web.
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