My Name Is E: Connect Online Identities Offline

Written by Matthijs Roumen on August 1st, 2009 | 1 comment

The Amsterdam startup scene is exploding. Startups like Wakoopa, Kimengi and Layar are working hard in redefining the future of the web and communication. And so is Postmachina, founder of the connecting service My Name is E. This service allows you to connect your online identities from accounts like Facebook, LinkedIn, Twitter and several other networks and share these in the offline world.

These kind of methods for connecting may be the next step to bring online communication even closer to the offline world. I spoke with Renato from Postmachina for some insights in their service.

First of all, I’d like to share my personal opinion on the whole identity thing. A trend I’ve noticed for the past years, is that the online identity isn’t just an online identity any more. It has become an extension for the offline identity, instead of being an identity on its own. The medium internet has evolved into an adult conversation and communication tool, leaving its childhood behind in which a lot of folks hid behind a nickname and/or fake id.

The behavior of an online identity is an extension of the offline identity. Just like this blog where professionals, who consult brands in the offline world on social media strategies and communication, share their experience and insights in the online world as well. Even social networks have become an extra communication layer, added on top of our real life / offline communication.

Lets hop back to My Name is E.

Instead of writing down Twitter acount names and Facebook profiles or searching that business contact from your last meeting on LinkedIn, E enables the connectors to automatically friend eachother after connecting with E (unfortunately not supported by all services yet). A big plus if you bump into an interesting person which you’d like to follow on the several social accounts of his activity.

YouTube video for promoting E.

Renato shared his vision of the new connecting with me on email with the following quote:

“We’re starting off with people to people interactions. We’re making some nice waves in this field but it was never our intention to limit ourselves to business cards. People to object or people to environment interactions are very important topics in our roadmap. The object being used for that, whether that’s a Connector or an iPhone, is of little importance. Our service is about bridging the online and offline lives of our users.”

He couldn’t share much insights on the growth of E when it comes to number of users, but was happy to tell me that the number of users is being counted by the second instead of by the minute. The iPhone app has already grown into the top 10 of most populair social networking app in 3 countries and they’re waiting for the regular press to pick up the news for a really big boom.

My public profile on E.

E also allows you to display your social network in a fancy badge and profile page, such as the image above.

How do you see these kind of tools? Will it bring social networking closer to the offline world? Would love to see your thoughts on identities in the comments.

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