January 7, 2008 3:14 PM

What your online first impression says about you
Posted by Diane Danielsonat 3:14 PM

I found an interesting article from the New York Times about how people need to think about the impression they are giving others who find them online.  While the article focuses a bit on online dating and the whole age-lowering/5-year old picture thing ... there was some content about how this can affect you professionally. 

Keith N. Hampton, an assistant professor at the Annenberg School for Communication at the University of Pennsylvania, said the notion of impressing "everyone out there" is the fundamental problem of networking sites. They are designed so that millions see the same image of a member.

For online impression management to be effective, Mr. Hampton said, the sites should be redesigned to allow people to reveal different aspects of their identity to different users. You should be able to present one face to your boss, and another to your poker buddies. "We have very real reasons for wanting to segment our social network," he said.

Click here to read the whole story.