Digital identity startup Passbase has bagged $600k in pre-seed funding led by a group of business angel investors from Alphabet, Stanford, Kleiner Perkins, EY; as well as seed fund investment from Chicago-based Upheaval Investments and Seedcamp. The 2018-founded Silicon Valley-based startup — whose co-founder we chatted to briefly on camera at Disrupt Berlin — is […]
View More Passbase is building a full stack identity engine with privacy baked inCategory: Identity
The second blockchain bubble is now complete — what’s next?
The last few months haven’t been easy for crypto investors. Following the dizzying highs of crypto trading late last year, which saw Bitcoin reach a peak of $19,276 and a market cap of $323 billion and Ether reach $1,152 with a market cap of more than $112 billion, prices have crashed. Today, Bitcoin trades at […]
View More The second blockchain bubble is now complete — what’s next?Trolls thought I was a man. That saved me.
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This post is part of Me, online, Mashable’s ongoing series digging into online identities.
I was locked in my friends’ bathroom on the phone with my thesis adviser and staring at Reddit. It was snowing pretty hard and though there was a window with some theoretical light streaming in, I felt like I was under a blanket, the flashlight of my attention pointed at a screen that I refreshed and refreshed and refreshed. I was discussing the critical thesis component required for my graduate degree, an MFA in creative writing. It was titled Masculinity and the Making of the Modern Nerd. It was a mess. Read more…
More about Reddit, Identity, Gamergate, Online Identity, and Online Identities
View More Trolls thought I was a man. That saved me.How Drew Gooden rebuilt his online identity after Vine died
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This post is part of Me, online, Mashable’s ongoing series digging into online identities.
If you’ve ever found yourself mourning the downfall of Vine by binging compilations late at night — because really, who hasn’t? — you’ve probably seen Drew Gooden’s iconic “Road work ahead? I sure hope it does!”
That Vine inspired remixes, parodies, and fan merchandise. But the 24-year-old is ready to work on other projects.
Like many Vine stars, Gooden’s made the transition to YouTube as a vlogger. Three years after that immensely popular Vine, he’s navigating the world of reaction videos, figuring out his own brand, and trying to move past being known as the Road Work Ahead guy. Read more…
More about Youtube, Vine, Identity, Online Identities, and Culture
View More How Drew Gooden rebuilt his online identity after Vine diedThe best places to find queer joy on Instagram
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This post is part of Me, online, Mashable’s ongoing series digging into online identities.
If you were a queer kid growing up in the early ’10s, Tumblr, not school, was where you found community.
Tumblr was home to some of the internet’s gayest Disney Princess memes. It was where you went for the best transmasc fashion, queer Harry Potter fan fiction, lesbian spells, and sometimes even a little bit of love. Queer teens disproportionately used the platform, studies found.
But Tumblr’s financials are bleak, and its role in queer culture has quietly diminished. Instead, it’s Instagram — an equally visual medium somewhat sheltered from Reddit’s trolls, Twitter’s bots, and Facebook’s morons — to which queer culture has moved. Read more…
More about Instagram, Lgbtq, Pride, Identity, and Pride Month
View More The best places to find queer joy on InstagramPing Identity acquires stealthy API security startup Elastic Beam
At the Identiverse conference in Boston today, Ping Identity announced that it has acquired Elastic Beam, a pre-Series A startup that uses artificial intelligence to monitor APIs and help understand when they have been compromised. Ping also announced a new product, PingIntelligence for APIs, based on the Elastic Beam technology. They did not disclose the sale […]
View More Ping Identity acquires stealthy API security startup Elastic BeamMake me cute: Why we’re obsessed with adorable cartoon avatars
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This post is part of Me, online, Mashable’s ongoing series digging into online identities.
Get ready for the rise of the cartoon clones.
When Apple releases iOS 12 this fall, its Bitmoji clone, Memoji, will expand the reach of the doodle doppelganger. Sure, Snapchat users already love Bitmoji, and Samsung copied Bitmoji with AR Emoji earlier this year, but Apple will bring our adorable twins even further into the mainstream.
Before we get there though, let’s stop and think: Why are we so obsessed with cute cartoon versions of ourselves? We’ve even gotten to the point where we complain our mini-mes are cooler than our actual selves. Read more…
More about Cute, Bitmoji, Avatar, Identity, and Memoji
View More Make me cute: Why we’re obsessed with adorable cartoon avatarsI’m way cooler on the internet than I am in person, and it gives me anxiety
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This post is part of Me, online, Mashable’s ongoing series digging into online identities.
“Chill the fuck out,” my internet self is constantly shouting to my real-life self.
See, I exist as two personalities: internet me and real-life me. Don’t we all? Living in a world of constant connection has led to these funhouse mirror versions of ourselves — they look like us but they’re slightly distorted, exaggerated, never quite shaping into a distinguishable human form.
With social media, the funhouse effect is even more amplified. In many cases those identities become proxies for our real-life selves. The internet me interacts with hundreds, if not thousands, of people every day. Real-life me? Well, real-life me would love nothing more than a couple hours of silence and maybe, on some days, to speak only with the person delivering my Seamless. Read more…
More about Social Media, Anxiety, Identity, Online Identities, and Culture
View More I’m way cooler on the internet than I am in person, and it gives me anxietyWhat’s your internet personality type?
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This post is part of Me, online, Mashable’s ongoing series digging into online identities.
If you’re reading this, you’re probably online, which, you know, good luck. But have you ever wondered exactly what type of online you are?
It takes all sorts to make an internet, from the fighters to the lurkers to the people who don’t really understand the internet at all. In our opinion, discovering your internet personality is kind of like the famed Myers-Briggs test — it relies on four main divides.
SEE ALSO: Find out which classic Bath & Body Works scent you are, based on your zodiac sign Read more…
More about Personality, Quiz, Identity, Online Identity, and Online Identities
View More What’s your internet personality type?The email problem no one is talking about: mistaken identity
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This post is part of Me, online, Mashable’s ongoing series digging into online identities.
In 2009, a San Francisco web strategist named Tim — last name withheld for reasons that will become clear — opened his Gmail to find a message from a Build-a-Bear workshop in St. Louis. The email was addressed to someone called Tamara.
That’s odd, thought Tim, but thought little more about it. Days later he received an email directed at someone called Toby. It contained photos of a family eating an Easter meal with, his correspondent assured him, “lots and lots of BACON!”
More about Email, Identity, Online Identities, Culture, and Identities
I’m a Slytherin on Twitter but a Hufflepuff on Instagram
This post is part of Me, online, Mashable’s ongoing series digging into online identities.
I have a confession to make: I’m a Slytherin on Twitter.
Yes, it’s true.
I’m a full-blown Ravenclaw in real life, and yet somehow, on Twitter, I co…
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