Fuego Nation Combines the Best and Worst of Social Web

What do you get when you combine the glut of personal information online, games and other “fun” features, and the serious side of business networking? Fuego Nation, apparently. According to the statement that accompanied today's opening of the new site, it tried to take a useful social business networking site like Linked In and junk it up with aspects of juvenile social sites like Myspace or the most annoying parts of FaceBook.

Are there really people out there in the over 30 bracket that want to take their online business persona and fill it with their “personal passions”? I know I don't. It's hard enough to keep your personal passions (and sometimes foibles and missteps) out of the way of your career and your education already with relatively separate sites for each.

Granted, the Internet being what it is, there will always be leaks, bleeding from personal to professional. That's to be expected. At least in keeping your online personas separate you have a chance to put your professional foot forward first when needed, and keep your private self in reserve for when you get to know a client or boss better.

We've blogged on how transparent information is online here at Profy before. It isn't uncommon to see a person lose a job opportunity, relationship or school choice because they were careless with what they allowed to be on the internet. Would having a place for people to post both personal and professional information help keep bad decisions about what to share under control? I don't think it would.

I think this would mesh the worst of both worlds. Unfortunately I also think that this trend where the lines of work and life are blurred beyond distinction is the wave of the future. What will happen when we become unable to have any privacy? I think we'll soon find out. Between the trend to invasive social networking, online health information, DNA databases and more, that time is coming faster than we think.