Lee Ferree

I got my Facebook username Saturday morning, like millions of others. Then I started thinking, “Maybe I should mirror my new username with all my other Social Networks.” I was mainly concerned about the big kahoonas, Twitter, MySpace and FriendFeed. The changes were pretty painless and I remember thinking, “Sheww!!”

Then I realized something terrible, “I’ve got to update these links EVERYWHERE!!” I’m sure I missed something beyond Google Profile, Facebook, MySpace, WordPress, twhirl, TweetDeck, Seesmic Desktop, Gmail TwitterGadget, boxee, Digsby, FriendFeed and Yahoo Profile.

Wouldn’t it be nice if we only had one Social Network to manage, not 4 or more?

Since that will probably never happen, a universal “ID Code” is a nice idea. Instead of changing your username on both your social site and ALL your connected apps, you’d just enter your “ID Code” once for each app. Your “ID Code” would be linked to your social site’s username. You could then change your username at any time (so long as your new choice is available) and the social site would link your “ID Code” to the new username you selected.

As we’re likely to be using more social nets in the future, not less… we need a better way to manage them, along with our apps.

How do you manage username changes on your social networks, or do you dare? What changes would you suggest to existing and future Social Networking Sites?