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.
MeeID 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!
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.
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.
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.
Comments
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Cool. Great to see things like this emerging as part of the new Social Web ecosystem.
Posted by: John McCrea | September 4, 2008 10:28 AM
It is a nifty little app but what's the benefit other than allowing you to claim your identity. In other words, I need to use MeeID because.....(fill in the blank).
Posted by: Mark Evans | September 4, 2008 11:07 AM
Thanks for the feedback. Here's one way to look at it:
because...this is the url to my facebook profile: http://www.facebook.com/home.php?#/profile.php?id=503207074
It's kind of hard to give that to someone that you just met on the subway. Yes, you might have a personal blog to give them, but this isn't true for most.
Also, MeeID sums up your digital life in one glance. My MeeID is currently the only place on the web that gives people a really good idea of who I am without reading through pages of filler.
Thanks,
Bronson Taylor
Posted by: Bronson Taylor | September 4, 2008 11:18 AM
Thanks for the link. I love the idea. Very simple, easy to use, but also very beneficial for me to SIMPLY tell you about me. There no junk ads everywhere, no clutter, just what I'm looking for.
Posted by: Caleb Sayre | September 4, 2008 11:27 AM
This little app seems to the kind that will bring out the creativity of a online identity. Not sure if I put that right across but it helps to draw attention and more. The suggestions on using MeeID is a great help too.
Posted by: Jonathan Kong | September 4, 2008 12:36 PM
Seems like a cool site. How does it rank in the search engines? (Probably will take time to rank well as it's new) I think it would only be truly beneficial if it ranks well for your name.
Posted by: Nick Stamoulis | September 4, 2008 1:01 PM
Cool site. But how to monetize, just from the four sponsors ?
Posted by: qinhan | September 5, 2008 1:54 AM
nice service, very clean and simple. Nowadays you have to control what's online about you:)
I also use a similar service, called http://www.realmee.com. It also allows you to put some personal information online, and links to all the other pages where information about you can be found.
How does it differ?
For comparison:
http://www.meeid.com/dirkdk/
http://www.realmee.com/en/306/dirk-de-kok
Posted by: Dirk
|
September 5, 2008 2:45 AM
What I find a nice app for storing your online identity is Retaggr. http://www.retaggr.com
It's kinda like an online business card on which you put all your online profiles!
definitely a check-out!
Regards
Rob
Posted by: Rob van Alphen | September 5, 2008 4:45 AM
Not much like Spock, as Spock also harvests information about you from other sites.
Posted by: Daniël W. Crompton | September 5, 2008 9:56 AM
Hi Sarah,
Nice post!!!
MeeID is a simple application but you can't tell how it will rank on SERPs for your name search. There may be other sites (maybe less welcome) which will rank higher in search results. The reason for that may be:
1) The relevancy of the site to the name you searched
2) The number of clicks each site gets when people search for your name
3) the number of outbound links to the site
4) The page rank of the site
5) Newer and more updated sites may receive higher ranking at first
and more…
The ranking may also change drastically over time…
Anyway, there are a lot ways to make your site rank higher than others, probably the easiest way is to use services that create a web site for you and specialize in SEO. One very user friendly service that I use (and I have many online profiles) is LookupPage. For example, you can Google my name or search my name in Yahoo to see that my LookupPage is the first result :-)
BR,
Udi Drezner
Posted by: Udi Drezner | September 7, 2008 5:41 AM
Very cool app, I just signed up myself. I think this is a great tool to put all your links in one place. Now I can put a link on my blog and people can add me as a friend on other networks. Very cool!
Posted by: Justin Wright | September 9, 2008 3:48 PM
Nice and clean, but too constrained. Its just links - no content. I'll be sticking with my retaggr card - way more flexible.
Posted by: Jeff | September 15, 2008 2:47 AM