Plenty of people have personal Web pages. But are we reaching the point where you need one?

The answer is still 'no' - but that 'no' is no longer quite so firm as it used to be. And sometimes that hesitation is a sign that the wheels of social change are starting to turn - that 'no' will turn into 'maybe' and then from there move quickly to 'yes' and then finally to 'it's weird that you don't.' If you're a thirtysomething, you've seen answering machines, voice mail, email addresses and cellphones complete the journey from curiosities to perceived necessities, just as our elders saw the same thing happen with TVs and phones.

What would drive personal Web pages along that well-traveled track? It's not one thing so much as it's a confluence of things.

The first is the question of how we're to find each other in a rapidly evolving future. As I explored last month, landlines are disappearing, yet there's no 'white pages' for cellphones. And we don't want one - the rise of email, IM and other forms of messaging have transformed the phone call into an intrusive way to communicate, best reserved for certain situations between people who already have a relationship. Which is fine, but raises the issue of how we're supposed to get in touch with people we don't already know. The most likely solution to the problem is a single point of contact, with additional levels of contact information unlocked by us as we deem appropriate. A Web page - whether it's on an outpost such as Facebook or LinkedIn or a site built out with communications tools - can serve that function pretty well.

Another reason is potentially more troubling: the need to defend and define your own identity online, lest others do it for you. A Network World article by Curt Monash caught my eye last week, alleging that an obscure online dating service had created a large number of Web pages based on combinations of first names and last names in hopes of convincing people searching for those names to become members - and potentially crowding out more-useful sites about a person with that name.

More on that a minute - what really struck me was Monash's conclusion: 'The Internet WILL tell stories about you, true or otherwise. Make sure your own version is out there too.'

He's right, and that warning applies to much more than dating sites. By its nature, the Internet returns piecemeal glimpses of us - small slices of our professional life, hobbies or youthful misdeeds, viewed out of context. The problem with potential employers Googling young job candidates and finding pictures of their bravest keg stands isn't so much the behavior itself - soon enough, plenty of folks in HR will have keg-stand snapshots of their own - as it is that they might not find a record of that person's more-lasting accomplishments. A personal Web page is an opportunity to tell your story and balance out other narratives that you can't control.

Maybe your online persona is free of keg stands - or photos of them don't imperil your job prospects. You still might want a home that offers context for your various online activities, building a mosaic out of what would otherwise be baffling fragments. That was my reason for finally putting together a bare-bones Web site of my own - I wanted one place for links to various Real Times, my baseball writing and contact information. (Well, that and I wanted to use blog software to create a static home page to prove a point that blogging is just a common use for a certain kind of software, and not the stuff of revolution. But that's a previous column.)

Or maybe you want to correct the record on something, or clear up potential confusion between you and someone with the same name. I do a fair amount of self-Googling to see how my columns are doing, so I grimaced when someone sharing my name aroused brief indignation for his comments about Barack Obama and John McCain. I'm not likely to be confused with 24-year-old Jason Fry from West Virginia. (Though I have deep West Virginia roots, so it's quite possible we're middle-distant cousins. Stop saying silly things, cuz.) But suppose it had been another 39-year-old Jason Fry from New York City? Again, a Web page of one's own would help in such a situation.

Then there's the threat of dilution by spam bloggers, or sploggers. If you've ever searched for a term and wound up on a bare-bones, awkwardly laid-out site with a bunch of text that doesn't fit together and some ads, you've found a splog - clever, unscrupulous Web entrepreneurs crank them out in hopes of scoring high in page rankings, luring surfers and getting paid when those surfers click on an ad. (Another kind of splog links to other sites spammers are trying to promote, in hopes of driving up those sites' search-engine ranking.) What makes splogs more than an annoyance is that they crowd out legitimate sites offering real information. I haven't heard much about splogs targeting searches for people's names, but frankly, that seems like only a matter of time - the brute-force economics of spam ought to make it worthwhile for someone. If name splogs do take off, we'll have to work even harder to cultivate our online identities.

Put it all together, and bit by bit, the case for having a page of one's own emerges - as one poster in a Slashdot conversation on the subject put it, 'Your name is essentially your very own brand; might as well try to paint it in a decent light.' Will that evolve into a social expectation? Not immediately, I'd wager - but in time, absolutely. And if so, Facebook could be the likely model - easy to use, indexable by search engines, emphasizes real names over pseudonyms, and has controls letting users control how they're contacted and by whom.

Many people may find that troubling. Our age is marked by worries about too much information floating around too freely - some of us want as little to do with the digital world as possible, and most of us who feel differently still sometimes wish we could keep that world's tentacles at bay. Given that, it's off-putting to imagine that having a Web page could become an expectation and a near-necessity. But technology and the social changes it ushers in have always been coercive. We'll get used to the idea, just as we've gotten used to all the ones that preceded it, and soon enough we'll be able to tell a lot about a person by, say, the mere formatting of their home page - including if they made it themselves or had the communications company do it for them. Whether we like it or not, it's too late to cram the personal-information genie back into his bottle. Better to make sure he serves us.

现在，不少人都有个人网页了，但我们真的需要它吗？

回答依然是“不”－－但这个“不”字已经不像以往那么坚决。有时候，迟疑是一种迹象，表明社会变化的车轮已经开始转动－－“不”将会变成“可能”，并很快变成“是”，最终转为“没有才怪”。如果你30岁上下，那一定见证了电话答录机、语音信箱、电子邮件和手机从新鲜货变为必需品的整个过程，正如更加年长的人看到电视和电话的“成长历程”。

为什么个人网页也会沿着这条既定轨迹走下去？这里不是一个因素在发挥作用，而是多种因素综合影响的结果。

首先就是如何在快速发展的社会中彼此联系的问题。上个月我发现，美国家庭的座机电话正在减少，而手机还没有类似“白页”这样的查询手段。当然我们也不需要－－因为电子邮件、即时通讯和其他各种形式的联系手段已经让打电话成为一种比较“冒昧”的沟通方式，只有彼此认识的人在特定情况下才会使用。这一点毋庸置疑，但问题在于，我们怎么才能跟陌生人联系？最可能的解决方案是建立一个联系界面，并由本人根据情况决定是否进一步提供其他合适的联系方式。个人网页－－无论是Facebook或LinkedIn这样的交友网站，还是带有交流工具的网页－－都能很好地实现这一功能。

另一个因素则更令人不安：为了在网络世界捍卫和说明自己的身份，以免被别人“冒充”。在2008年7月初的《网络世界》杂志(Network World)中，科特•莫纳西(Curt Monash)写的一篇文章引起我的注意，文章说有个名不见经传的交友网站用随机组合出来的姓名杜撰了大量个人网页，以此吸引那些在网上搜寻同样名字的人成为该网站的会员。这种做法可能会让真正使用该姓名的人的个人网页遭到排挤。

再多说几句－－真正让我感到震撼的是莫纳西在文中的结论：“互联网将有关于你的故事，无论是真是假，所以一定要确保你自己的真实版本也在网上有一席之地。”

他说得没错，这一警告不仅适用于交友网站。从本质上说，互联网可能留有关于我们生活的零星记录－－我们的职业生涯、爱好、年轻时的胡闹行为等等，而这些往往会被拿出来孤立地看。招聘企业可能会到网上搜索求职者的名字，结果发现他们倒立在啤酒桶上用软管吸酒的疯狂照片。照片上的行为本身不会带来多大问题－－因为不久后可能整个人力资源部的人都会去拍这种照片－－关键是他们可能无法找到应聘者其他更大的成就。如果拥有个人网站，你就可以自己介绍自己，抵消那些无法控制的网络信息所带来的负面影响。

也许你没有在网上留下什么倒立喝酒的照片－－以及其他那些可能危及工作前途的图像证据，但你还是需要一个网上家园，以便让别人了解你的情况，使你在网上留下的点滴痕迹不至于那么令人费解或容易误会。这就是我给自己建立一个简易个人网页的初衷－－我想在互联网上有那么一片天地，放上“Real Times”专栏的各类文章链接，还有我写的关于棒球运动的文章，以及自己的联系方式等等。（当然，另一个原因是我想试用一个博客软件创建静态个人网页，以此证明撰写博客只是某个特定软件的寻常功能，而不是什么革命性的创举。但这是之前一篇专栏文章的内容了。）

也许你想更正互联网上关于你的一些信息，或跟另一个同名同姓者的网上资料划清界线。我经常上网搜索本人的名字，看自己写的专栏文章反响如何，因此当看到某个同名同姓者发表对美国总统候选人巴拉克•奥巴马(Barack Obama)和约翰•麦凯恩(John McCain)大放厥词引起别人不满时，总要揪心一阵子。我想别人可能不太相信我跟那个24岁来自西弗吉尼亚州的杰森•弗莱(Jason Fry)是同一个人。（虽然我老家也在西弗吉尼亚州，由此可见我俩很有可能是远房表兄弟，呵呵，我就不再胡扯了。）但假如那个同名同姓者也39岁，也住在纽约呢？同理，如果有自己的个人网页的话，它在这种情况下就可以派上用场了。

此外，还有来自垃圾博客的威胁。如果你在网上搜索一个关键词，然后找到一个设计简陋、版面粗糙的网页，上面有些不知所云的文字和一些广告，那么这就是一个垃圾博客－－由某个脑子聪明但缺乏道德的网络商人炮制出来，希望能在搜索页面上排名较高，吸引更多人气，如果访客点击广告的话，就能赚上一笔。（另一类垃圾博客的页面设有连接，把访客引导到他们想推广的其他网站，希望以此提高那些网站在搜索引擎上的排名。）垃圾博客更让人讨厌的是，它们会把提供真正信息的好网页排挤出去。我还没有听说利用姓名搜索来吸引注意力的垃圾博客，但老实说，这只是时间问题而已，低成本的垃圾博客迟早会扩张到这个领域。如果利用姓名的垃圾博客开始蔓延，那我们得更加努力地打造自己的网上家园。

总而言之，拥有自己的个人网页很有必要。正如科技新闻网站Slashdot关于这个话题的一个帖子说：“你的姓名就是你的品牌，不妨把这个品牌擦亮一点。”这种思维方式会不会成为社会潮流？近期不会，但我敢打赌，早晚一定会的。果真如此的话，Facebook网站应该是个不错的模式－－不但使用方便，可以被搜索引擎捕捉到，强调真名实姓而非网名，而且能让用户自己控制联系方式，以及选择是否接受别人的联系。

很多人可能会觉得这样做很麻烦；我们这个时代的特点之一就是有太多可以自由流通的信息－－我们中的一些人根本不想跟数字世界打交道，而能够接受互联网的大多数人有时候也会希望网络世界的触角能暂时远离我们的现实生活。在这种情况下，想到今后个人网页可能成为一种趋势，甚至接近于一种必需品，我们难免会感到不快。然而，科技发展以及随之引发的社会变革向来不以大众的意志为转移，我们会慢慢习惯这一观念，正如我们习惯以前那些新鲜事物一样。很快，我们就能通过浏览个人网页了解一个人的很多情况－－比如他的个人网页是自己创建，还是由通讯软件公司代为创建的。无论是否乐意，我们已经把神仆从阿拉丁神灯中释放出来，没办法把它塞回去了，唯一可做的，就是确保它能切实为我们服务。