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The Future of Personality
Perhaps someday almost everyone will have a personal website the same way that most everyone (at least in the developed world) has a phone number. These sites are already a new way to express ourselves but may evolve to be as much a part of us as our clothing instead of merely a new form of resume or portfolio. Andy Warhol once said, now infamously, that in the future, everyone will be famous for 15 minutes. Had he lived to see the Internet, perhaps he would have seen he very medium that could actually make this true. However, time is not an issue on the Internet. A better expectation might be that everyone in the future will be famous for 15 pages, but to make those pages count, they must reflect who we are personally and how much we're willing to share with each other.
Another interesting figure from the same study I cited in the beginning is that while 20% of those already online already have personal websites (that's a lot of sites) and 14% are planning a personal site, but that still leaves about 66%? The truly interesting story here is what their thoughts are for this medium and their involvement, why they don't want a site. Is it that they have nothing to say to the rest of us? Are they too shy? Do they not think they have something to share or maybe they don't know how to make a personal site? Perhaps they just have better things to do with their time.
My guess is that, in time, they will discover their voices, throw-off their fears and self-doubts, and join the rest of us with their own sites, messages, stories, and experiences. I'ld like to end with a quote from Eduardo Galeano from his Book of the Embraces that captures the power and importance of this genre:
"When it is genuine, when it is born of the need to speak, no one can stop the human voice. When denied a mouth, it speaks with the hands or the eyes, or the pores, or anything at all. Because every single one of us has something to say to the others, something that deserves to be celebrated or forgiven by others."
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