What's Your Digital Lifestyle?

Perhaps you share the same problem. Maybe we can work through it together.

GOT A TIP OR RUMOR?

My digital personas and activities spread out over too many places. I don't know what community I belong to anymore. Surely, you know this problem. There's a sense of lost identity, being on AIM, Facebook, Flickr, FriendFeed, Ovi, Tumblr, Twitter, YouTube, Vimeo, Windows Live, Zune and many other services. I've abandoned some services and haven't yet become active on others.

Companies and individuals have this sense that the digital lifestyle is larger than life—that people can defy physical laws and be in two or more places at once. Where different digital services intersect/integrate, perhaps that's somewhat true. But if the connection is people, how many can you realistically be close to? How many places can you digitally be at once?

Services like Facebook Connect or Google Friend Connect offer some remedy to online social networking silos. But they're only a beginning, I say.

I find some services falling into strange silos and others overlapping in weird ways. For example, 95 percent of my Windows Live Messenger contacts work for or are affiliated with Microsoft. AIM is a mishmash of everybody else, including eWEEK colleagues, family, friends, peers and people working for other high-tech companies. Most of my Twitter followers work for high-tech or PR firms. So I do little to no personal tweeting. Why bother?

Facebook divides into friends and family and high-tech employees and media colleagues or peers. It's a divergent group that simply doesn't mix well together. So my Facebook page is largely inactive. I don't post photos or videos, and my status updates come from Twitter. Surely, you know what I mean.

Human beings are social animals. We crave—we need—interaction with others. People look for community—a place to belong. But how many places can you realistically belong and be happy? Can you be Fraker Attacker on Xbox, Frugal Juvenile on YouTube and Perry Pissant on USTREAM? That's all without accounting for specialized interests, like photography, role-play gaming, skate boarding or Yo-Yo collecting. Those activities open up other digital and social activities. For example, a Nikon camera owner might join Nikonians or some other photo forum.

Do you ever wonder about the mental health of having all these digital personalities? Doctors institutionalize people for split-personality disorders. Do you digitally know who you are?

My digital identity problem isn't just mine. If you've got a lifestyle brand or product, it's your problem, too. Successful brands typically share in common lifestyle marketing. Apple, Harley Davidson, Nokia, Research In Motion and Sony are among the successful companies touting a specialized lifestyle around their products. I would happily put Microsoft on the list, if I could figure out exactly what is the Microsoft lifestyle.

Apple offers a lifestyle around Macs—coolness, creativity and content; music; and iPhone. There's great vertical integration among the products and supporting services, but the horizontal is weak. There's no Mac social network and limited Apple product/service support for other social services. Still, there's a Mac identity that extends outward to several digital services.

Nokia sells a mobile lifestyle around its handsets, and there are a bunch of new Ovi services that are mostly incomplete. Nokia's lifestyle approach builds community among its own products and services around a single digital identity. There's no digital split personality, but not much interaction with other digital destinations where more friends and family might hang out. Also, the Nokia lifestyle is more international. The company's phones and services have limited reach in the U.S. market.

I won't dissect every lifestyle brand. Some of them need to better plug into broader digital lifestyles. Some are more effective than others. But all somewhat share the problem of fostering digital split-personality disorder.

I'm looking for ways to better consolidate my digital lifestyle and to make it work better with the offline world, too (there increasingly isn't much difference). I wonder: Are you looking for a little digital sanity, too? Perhaps we can work out our mutual problems together.

I would ask readers to comment and to generate some debate about better managing digital personas and lifestyles. Please, make some suggestions for the companies selling products or providing services that you use, too. Microsoft is still pulling together its digital lifestyle services around Windows Live. Perhaps your suggestion could affect a future service. If you're happy with your digital lifestyle and identity, please tell everyone else why.

[Please send your tips or rumors to watchtips at live.com.]