So the question is, will personal websites fall into this legal conundrum too?

All this is not to say, however, that your eBrand isn’t very powerful in your career – if you’re a “knowledge worker,” that is. This whole concept doesn’t currently seem to apply outside this segement of the workforce, and there’s a very real fault line there, but that’s another subject for another time. For knowledge workers, the relationships you build online are tremendously powerful in your professional development and career path, so I wonder if in the future, we will start to see people with strong, active brands moving much more quickly up and around in their careers, based simply on their broad, supple networks and their demonstrated expertise and skill.

Sure, companies ask for them now, but what is more important — understanding your brand/value prop and building visibility around that message, or relying on a paper document (usually badly written and typically task- rather than results-oriented) to get you in front of your targets.

A “one-stop shop” URL that gathers all your web presence, thought leadership and accomplishment activity, as well as your accomplishments, can be a portal to all that’s needed to present you. With profiles on LinkedIn, FaceBook, and other social netorking sites acting a resumes anyway, and sites like Twitter building real-time relationships, a static document like a resume has increasingly limited application.

I’ve been doing full-scope C-level personal branding and resume/collateral development for years, and in that time I’ve seen the resume go from the focus of the project to a minor deliverable. Branding and value, along with elevator pitches, branded interview prep, and accomplishment case studies tied to the brand are what’s critical now. When a careerist has to tell their story in so many mediums, she has to know that story inside and out. Doing rez dev alone won’t get her there.

I’ve had clients get jobs while still doing branding, before the resume was even done, because of the clarity the brand brought. Translating that message to a portal site is a natural extension.

I’m completely on-board with you on this trend prediction.

I already own DebDib.com. Guess I’d better start building it

If your name is John Robert Smith and johnsmith.com is taken, I suggest buying one of the following variants:

john-smith.com
john-r-smith.com
john-robert-smith.com
johnrsmith.com
johnrobertsmith.com
jsmith.com
jrsmith.com
j-smith.com
and so forth…

People forget hyphens, but that is a valid character for a URL.

You can aim for a dot-net or a dot-org domain, but most people will type dot-com anyway so that’s your best bet. I’m not a fan of the dot-name domains.

Daniel Scocco posted some useful advice on buying a yourname.com at Daily Blog Tips. There are many useful comments, too.

This reminds me of an earlier time in our country when few people traveled outside of the county they lived in, consumed almost all of their food from locally grown farms, and transacted a majority of their business locally.