Christopher Walken was a victim of an online impersonator, but are fictional fakers such a problem?

As our use of the internet evolves, questions of online and offline identity become more important. Maybe a little mild deception might be fun?

Tuesday night saw the latest meeting of Manchester’s Social Media Cafe. One of the talks was run by Futuresonic festival founder Drew Hemment. Although the talk was supposed to be about the festival (which incidentally includes a rather excellent-looking Social Technologies Summit), it ended up becoming a fascinating group debate about online identity.

In the past people tended to hide their real identities behind an online pseudonym. The real people behind screen names like ‘CrazyGirl82′ or ‘DonkeyMan’ a few years ago would have hated for people to know too much about their true identity. An emerging trend over the past year (perhaps inspired by the ‘real names only’ policy of Facebook) has been for people to be transparent about their identity online.

It’s another example of what I’ve previously called ‘The Naked 21st Century‘ – the inevitable shift to a totally open, much less private world. If we’re using our real names online there’s nothing ‘fake’ to hide behind. As disconcerting as that may sound, it does have its benefits. A ‘real name’ Twitter account, for example, can seem more trustworthy than someone who hides behind an abstract identity.

On the other hand, if real names are the norm then it becomes easier to pretend to be someone else. Twitter is littered with fake celebrity accounts run by people who presumably just like the attention. Funnily enough, it’s been down to the real celebrities on there, like Jonathan Ross and Philip Schofield, to weed out the charlatans thanks to their heaving address books.

While we may be skeptical about celebrity accounts, what about ‘normal people’ online? How do we know someone is real? One woman taking part in the debate on Tuesday astounded me by talking about the lengths she went to in creating a fake online identity for “research purposes” related to her job in PR.

Her fake identity had its own email address, social network accounts, political views. How she got around the problem of needing photos I’m not sure but she claimed her fictional character fooled a lot of people into ‘befriending’ a figment of someone’s imagination.

How would you feel if you discovered that someone you had been talking to online was just a fictional character? Personally, I think I’d be a little upset at first, but in the grander scheme of things does it really matter? When I debate issues with people online it’s just an exchange of ideas – a bit of mental exercise, if you will. In most cases it doesn’t amount to anything, it’s just a debate, no more and no less. It really doesn’t matter whether who I’m talking to is real or not.

So, in most cases people’s online identities are irrelevant. People may feel a little cheated if they discover the truth, but unless the fake identities are used for illegal purposes what’s the harm?

In fact, I’d go so far as to say that creating an alternative identity online might be a fun exercise! I’m tempted to give it a go. Trying to express opinions that are at odds with my own might help me understand other people’s views. Why not try it yourself and let me know how you get on?

[Image Credit: Christopher Walken by David Shankbone]

After that it was on to the ‘Unconference’ sessions. I did a presentation about ‘Creating and Sharing with a Mobile Phone’. I was a little worried that it would be a bit too much like preaching to the converted but the people there, including journalists and academics, seemed to enjoy my introduction to services like Shozu, Qik and Google Latitude. We also got on to talking about the ethics of mobile video broadcasting – something I’ve discussed here before.

I created my presentation with Google Docs and you can view the whole thing here. Feel free to post comments and questions below.

Also, Sarah Hartley from the Manchester Evening News streamed bits of my presentation using Qik, including this bit – about Qik, funnily enough.

In recent times that spirit of bold adventure has been missing from the city. Last year’s Tony Wilson Experience event was supposed to encourage a new generation of creativity in the city but seemed more like a nostalgic round-up of past glories than a celebration of new creativity and enterprise. Then last month a proposal to introduce huge improvements to Manchester’s public transport system was rejected in a public referendum due to the limited congestion charging element that would be required to help fund all the new trams, trains and buses. It was seemed like Manchester had lost the balls to get out there and do things its own way.

Finally it seems like there’s a spirit of innovation returning to the city and Social Media is at the heart of it. When Social Media Cafe Manchester was conceived three months ago we didn’t know how it would develop. It was based on a desire to replicate London’s Tuttle Club in Manchester. There were lots of people interested in Social Media in the city but no way for them all to get together, share information and collaborate.

We decided straight away that we’d be doing one thing different from Tuttle. While similar events in London, Birmingham and elsewhere take place during the day, Social Media Cafe Manchester was going to be an evening thing. It works – we can combine sharing and learning with a relaxed atmosphere (aided by alcohol if you so choose) and people who can’t convince their bosses to let them take time out of work to come along can make it. That means in addition to people working directly in web tech and marketing we get journalists, programmers, DJs and all manner of other people coming along.

While Tuttle is mainly a social event, we wanted the Manchester version to provide a forum for discussion and learning as well as networking and meeting friends. Our first two monthly meetings saw us finding our feet. We had a panel debate about the future of blogging during the first month and a guest speaker talking about using Social Media in art in the second month.

David Bird leads one of the smc_mcr sessions

The main criticism of these meetings was a lack of interactivity for attendees, so for this month’s meeting we decided to adopt an Unconference format. We had six slots for speakers, running three at a time. The volunteer speakers talked about their chosen topics for around twenty minutes and then took questions. Topics ranged from a beginner’s guide to Social Media, through GPS and the future of mobile technology to using Social Media in a learning environment. There was truly something for everyone and the feedback has been great so it looks like the Unconference format will continue for the time being (with flexibility to include ‘main event’ big-name speakers from time-to-time).

It was clear from last night just how much innovation in Social Media is taking place here in Manchester. From university courses based on Google Groups and requiring essay submissions via Youtube videos to Myspace data mashups aimed at supporting the local music scene, we’re a busy bunch. We even have an Institute for Social Media that has spawned interesting projects like Twaffik.

While London has a wide range of events supporting Social Media innovators, Manchester had very little until Social Media Cafe Manchester began. We’ve started a monthly event that can help nurture a  local scene and we’ve done it in a uniquely Mancunian way. Now sub-groups are starting to form, beginning with a group interested in using Social Media with music. Given Manchester’s musical heritage it’s little surprise that we’re going down that route. Who knows what else will spring out of the event we affectionately call smc_mcr?

It seems 2009 is going to be a year that sees a huge explosion in Social Media innovation here and I can’t wait. Manchester finally has its balls back!

You can read more about Social Media Cafe Manchester at the Wiki.

While the Google Group for the Cafe now has over 150 members, we were honestly only expecting about 30-40 people to bother to turn up on a cold and windy November evening.  How wrong we were!  At its busiest point there were about 80 people there.  Attendees came from varying backgrounds – PR, journalism and tech startups seemed to be the main ones but there quite a few “just interested” types too so it was a good mix.

The “main event” for the first meeting was a panel discussion around that “Is Blogging Dead” meme from a couple of weeks back.  Craig McGinty, Chi-chi Ekweozor and I, chaired by Sarah Hartley of the Manchester Evening News debated the current state of blogging and there were some great questions from the crowd, bringing up subjects as diverse as best practice for corporate blogging to the apparent shunning of Livejournal by the blogosphere.

To be honest, it all went by in a bit of a blur for me and so I can’t really offer an objective view on the debate but there were a variety of responses from the crowd via Twitter using the hashtag #smc_mcr .  Michael Cooper and Simon Wheatley in particular offered some great live commentary of the debate as it happened.  There will be a big screen displaying hashtagged tweets at the next event to allow for a more interactive event.

The best bit of the night for me was the networking.  Events like this are a great opportunity to informally chat with all sorts of interesting people.  I had conversations about topics as diverse as creative ways to arrange screenings of classic films, the pro-TIF PR blitz in Manchester to the psychology behind voting methods in TV cookery programmes!

I did some live video streaming to Qik last night which is available here, here, here, here and here.  Sarah live streamed some of the debate on Bambuser here and here.  If you live in the Manchester area in the North West of England why not come along to the next event?  Join the Google Group for more information as it’s announced.

- A monthly event – London’s Tuttle Club is weekly but there’s a bigger community to support that frequency.  We can always become more frequent as we grow.

- In the evenings – Many of these kind of things happen during the working day.  This means not as many people can come due to work commitments.

- Open to members to decide how it develops – Social Media, with its emphasis on community, needs to be open.  Having too much of a leadership structure can inhibit progress.  It’s very much a ’see how it goes’ approach but we think it will work.

The date of the first meeting has been set for 11th November at an as-yet unconfirmed venue.  Update: The venue has been confirmed as: 56 Tib Street, Manchester, M4 1LW.  The event will run from 6pm to 9pm.  To keep things moving I’ve set up a Google Group for the cafe which is going well so far.

I’ll have coverage of the first meeting once it’s taken place next month.

[Image credit: Warhead on Flickr]

Strange, maybe, but certainly understandable.  With Twitter teetering on the edge of the mainstream,  Flickr already in use by lots of ‘non-geeks’ and Facebook taking in external feeds and introducing the masses to the idea of lifestreaming, Social Media is an idea that is sure to grow even as the economy goes down the toilet.

There’s a Social Media Club with ‘chapters’ spread across the USA but the idea is only just taking off properly here in the UK.  London’s Tuttle Club has a loyal following at their Friday morning meetings each week.  Tuttles have also sprung up in Brighton and Birmingham but there’s been nothing here in the north of England as of yet.  That said, it looks like there soon will be.

It started when I checked my email on Wednesday morning.  Julian Tait of Littlestar had emailed me with an idea.  We’d both posted comments on this post about the Tuttle Club on Sizemore’s blog.  We’d both expressed our wish for something similar in Manchester.  Julian’s email simply suggested we set it up ourselves.

Over the next couple of days emails flew around between the two of us and an increasing number of other people – London Tuttlers were happy to offer advice while Manchester-based Social Media types such as Paul Fabretti were keen to get the idea off the ground. On Wednesday, the same day the whole idea began, Julian met the Manchester Evening News’ Sarah Hartley about something completely different and she posted this on the MEN’s technology blog, The Mancunian Way, resulting in lots of interest from the people of Manchester.

That’s where we’re up to right now – there’ll be more news on the progress of the idea as it’s worked out over the coming weeks.  If you’re interested leave a comment over at Sarah Hartley’s blog post.

[Image credit: London's Tuttle Club by Pete Ashton via Flickr]