We have many developments that have taken place recently. Difficult to chronicle them all, and we didn't have the energy to qik video most, though we did do a video of our new house once we got moved in. Tired? Oh yeah! We spent the last several days moving, situating ourselves and unpacking the whole mess. Which means, ultimately, our online time has been limited.

As limited as our online time has been, we've still been doing our best to read some blog posts and generally keep up with our myriad of online/offline friends. A few posts have sort of stood our for me, forcing me to question my presence as well as my ability to maintain integrity in blogging and using various media tools.

This morning I read on Facebook a post written by Jeff Pulver. Jeff is an interesting guy. One of my favorite reads actually. He intrigues me because his mind is incredible. He has more ideas than probably anyone I know. But maybe it just seems that way?

What Jeff Pulver has the ability to do is capture a thought and express it, garnering a great deal of consideration in the world of technology. That is something I wish I could do. Not necessarily garner the attention, though obviously I am an attention seeker, but have my thoughts matter somehow, yes.

This morning is no different with regard to my enjoyment of Jeff's writing. His post, "The Digital “Me” - Welcome to Life 3.0", talked about living digitally and how people know each other in todays world. He suggests that people may think they know him because he is so public, writing, using video, audio and really so many different tools to get his content displayed in one way or another, but the question really is do we know him? I mean, is it possible to have enough content out there that people truly know you even if they have never met you or talked to you? I wonder about that.

Ken and I post to a lot of different places for a variety of reasons. We post pictures to flickr to share with our family and friends what we're up to. We post to our blogs, our thoughts and our visions. We post to twitter to give quick updates or touch base. Facebook we use as a sort of playground as well as a place to see what some of our non twittering friends are up to, and jaiku we use to have conversations with people, sometimes only chiming in to something someone we know has thrown out there for discussion. We do use video on seesmic and a few other places, though most of our video goes through our GeekSpeak TV show.

Why did I mention all of that? I still want to know if people think they really know me/us because of all they read. On the one hand I think there are things people absolutely know that they wouldn't know unless reading and paying attention to our various feeds. But who am I? Does the digital life make it easier or more difficult for people to connect and really gain a sense of who those they follow are?

My 2 cents... for family members, the non-tech sector and even some of the more tech savvy family and friends we have, our various postings absolutely allow them into our lives to share and almost feel they are participating with us. But here's the catch. Those people actually know us. They have a sense of our value system, our views of the world. They know, for instance, the struggle I had in getting a treatment for my son to improve his bone density. They also know how much energy I spent at hospitals and doctors offices while he was being cast or getting the casts off. They know other things too, like what my favorite color is, that I don't like onions because I get nauseated when I eat them. (I won't mention what they know about Ken because he can divulge that or not as he sees fit)

I think maybe it's not possible to know as much as we think we can just by reading feeds. My sense is that it can prevent the actual interaction because people don't feel they need to communicate as long as they can catch up reading the various posts. I also think our society is becoming less interactive physically and more interactive technologically. I don't honestly know if thats a good thing or a bad thing but it is part of the evolution we're all taking part in. My guess is that we won't learn the really important things if we stop meeting each other face to face. I just wonder where we're all going to wind up. Is it possible to be too connected? Time will tell. In the meantime, I'm going to go read a blog.