One Account - Multiple Personalities

The issue many users have had with the first wave of online social networking sites such as Facebook and Myspace is the inability to clearly divide what external users see between the social aspect and more professional aspect of an individual's life. Without a clear division here, users have found the systems frustrating and have had issues with sections of their lives being shared with the wrong demographic. This is particularly notable in the employer-employee relationships.
Moshin Manji write in his article, Facebook and Google in Reference Checks - What Employers Use to Research You (2008), discusses the increasing trend of employers admitting to "using social networking sites and search engines as tools in conducting reference checks in the employment process." The issues arise when a social networking page created by an individual is meant only for social purposes and shows photos or discussions that the creator would prefer a potential employer did not see. The same issue can be encountered with family members, friends from different circles, educators etc. It is not, however, a breach of privacy if the user has produced the page and added the information onto the easily accessible site themselves, which is usually the case.

As users become more familiar with the capabilities of the sites, adaptations are made and new forms on social networking are created. One example of this is MOLI.com. MOLI’s creators describe it as “a next-generation social networking site where members can manage multiple profiles in one account. Members can separate their social, business and family relationships and keep control over their privacy.”

MOLI is targeted to enterprising individuals and small business owners and attempts to offer a “multimedia interactive platform ideal for both community collaboration and e-commerce” by allowing members to use different profiles to communicate and network with their diverse social, business and family networks independently. Users can also set up an e-commerce store and generate profit from their profiles.

I believe the benefits to these adaptations to the social networking platform as a whole, is primarily for the user who will be able to control their information, who it is shared among, and only reveal what side of their personality they wish to, to that particular audience. Photos of friends partying hard on the weekend do not have to be visible to employers and information of the new product you are attempting to launch does not have to be shown to your close group of friends on a regular basis. Rather than improving the privacy aspect of the online environment, I think MOLI is attempting to mimic the ‘real world’ social setting and how individuals usually share information about themselves depending on their audience.

To discover more about MOLI or to sign-up for an account click here.