Everyone’s heard the buzz words.  Social networking.  Web 2.0.  Ajax.  Branding.

I woke this morning after a long night and for some reason one of the things that came to my mind was how the internet was changing.  Maybe it’s because I’m writing an essay for research writing on Napster and its effects on the recording industry and the internet, or maybe not, but nonetheless I think it’s an interesting topic.

The internet began as a very basic informational network.  It was pretty much text and the only thing it was good for was looking up information.  Do you all remember “you’ve got mail!”?

And then came the big Dot Com bubble.  All of a sudden the internet became about you, the user.  Thousands upon thousands of new websites came up hoping to take advantage of this newfound interest in the internet.  I remember a service called Kozmo that was essentially Blockbuster, except that you could order your movie and snacks online and they promised it would be delivered to your house within an hour.  It was beautiful, and the epitome of laziness.  But then everyone realized that it wasn’t exactly easy to sustain a business in this virtual world and the little dot come bubble popped.

It was time for some rethinking and rebuilding.  A few years ago Myspace came out.  It started something new.  It shifted the internet from being about online services and information into a community.  I think that the internet is just getting over the Myspace craze and is starting to realize where everything is really going.

What we have come to realize is that the internet isn’t just about posting pictures of yourself drunk on the weekends.  Or tricking out your Myspace and Xanga with digital glitter.  Now, the internet is about showing yourself off in a good light, which is where all of this buzz-word shit about social networking comes into play.  In the MySpace days, the internet was about connecting with your friends and posting pictures of yourself from a high angle so that you could look “hot”.

Well, now we’re realizing that the internet isn’t just about staying connected to your friends, it’s about “building a brand”.  All of a sudden, individuals are taking advantage of the internet to try and create a brand for themselves.  Everyone is creating a website, facebook, tumblr, linkedin, twitter, to try and create a professional online presence.  We are just beginning to figure out how to use the internet to connect to friends and also to advertise ourselves in a good light.

Let’s face it, if you know me I’m just as guilty.  I’ve thought a lot about how I can portray myself in a good light on the internet.  If you google me, you’ll probably find me— ideally you’ll find my website.  My website connects you to all of my different social networks and syndicates my blog.  It has my portfolio and my resume.  If you’ve ever asked for my email, it’s nick [at] mynameisnick dot net which again points to my website.

I understand the need and the want and the importance of building a brand.  But personally, I think that it’s getting to the point that it’s a little bit ridiculous.  We throw the term around way too much and at this point I think that “building a brand” has to be more than just creating a website or a facebook in order to put yourself online.  There has to be something special, otherwise you’re doing the same thing everyone else is.  Or maybe I just don’t like the term.  I feel like it’s become a word that everyone and anyone can use without truly understanding what “building a brand” means.  I think that with the development of the internet, comes understanding and misunderstanding about what it can do for you personally in terms of building a brand.

So here’s my thing.  Creating a website and maintaining an online presence is important in this day and age.  Chances are good that at some point, you will be Google’d or looked up on Facebook.  But don’t think that you’re creating a brand for yourself by simply making a Facebook page for yourself.  Because you’re not. Building a brand requires more than that, and it’s a term that is much more complicated than that, and really only needs to be used in specific cases.

There is a difference between “building a brand” for yourself and building an online presence.  Building an online presence is what really matters for most people.  So how do you stay ahead of the curve?  I think that where we’re going is that everything is going to need to come together.  We all have all of these different services doing different things, but what is going to matter is making sure that it’s easy to connect to each of these services.  For me, my website accomplishes this.  It serves as a portal for finding me on Facebook, Linkedin, My Tumblr, pretty much everything.  We’ve established as a society that it’s important to create a web presence on various social networks.  I’m telling you that the next step is going to be choosing how to combine all of them.