Fragmentation as a way of life, Integration as a business model

Fragmentation allows you to control your life, by the time-tested technique of dividing a problem into manageable pieces. It lets you pretend something didn’t happen, by closing an account. There’s even a business model around that -disposable email addresses that quietly disappear after you get that download link for a demo or brochure (the demo I understand, but what’s the point of brochures but to give them to as many persons as possible? Electronic trees can survive that, folks. And no, I never gave my email for a brochure when I had the choice. Next time they’ll want a dollar.)

From the service provider’s point of view, Integration has the advantage of lock-in: Facebook, iTunes, Kindle and Google all aim, in their own sneaky ways, to become a part of your world.

	is	wants to be	however
Facebook	social	the foundation of your world	you can’t share or buy files. You can’t share material uncomfortable for the United States government.
iTunes	personal	the last shop you’ll ever visit for digital goods	wasn’t meant for interaction (until September 2010)
Kindle	mostly personal	your home library	by design, is only an ebook reader.
Google	evil	everything except creator or licensee	is still a one-trick pony.

The last row deserves explaining: Google isn’t really social -until Buzz’ clumsy land grab, it targeted mostly you (I’m not counting Picasa, Orkut and all other “also by Google” services. There’s a reason Google grabbed your Gmail address book without asking first for Buzz). And now that Buzz made every Facebook error on day one, it’s hard to predict the future of the service. But it still has a good grip on you as an individual, yet it doesn’t really try to sell anything to you, but to sell you to its business clients. Facebook still does some of this, but seems to have shifted to selling itself as a platform for customer relations and online services. As the two customer-oriented services, is no wonder both iTunes and Kindle are slightly more careful with your privacy.

Identity services like those above hold small fiefdoms where people can live for free, and they kinda can leave, but most people have a bit of everything. That itself tells you how weak they really are, and how you’d rather have a fragmented online identity.

Notes

1. While the Kindle seems out-of-place for being very specialized, it definitely belongs to this list, as reading habits are incredibly personal. And I say “Kindle” instead of “Amazon” because the Kindle is intended as an always-on online service, while Amazon is an online book store. As such, it does know your identity and can make a good guess at your reading habits, but that doesn’t quite warrant its inclusion in my list by itself.
2. I prefer to call these services “Identity services” instead of the more accurate “Identity-based services” because I don’t think there is a slightly succesful example of the former (no, your email is not an identity service) and because I think at this point there won’t be any, as many of these services aim to be your identity.
3. Why didn’t I include Microsoft and Yahoo! ? Because their position is more defensive of their own business models. Microsoft seems more concerned with creating brand loyalty and a “Microsoft customer” identity, while Yahoo!, who has probably the strongest email service (which in turn creates an identity) seems to be reinventing itself (again) as a portal into the greater Internet, perhaps selling eyeballs to content partners. Thus their identities don’t come off as hegemonic as the others, and are more opt-in in nature -you don’t necessarily have to use your real name or give your credit card info. Update: Yahoo! integrates more with Facebook.
4. There’s another reason to avoid comprehensive online identities: some companies see an all-you-can-eat buffet in them.
5. An important but seldom discussed point: what to do when users die?

© 2010 Héctor Cuevas. All rights reserved.