When I first heard about About.me, a relatively new website that functions as a personal, interactive calling card of sorts, I imagine I had the same reaction as a lot of folks:

That’s nice, but honestly, I don’t need one more “online thing” to manage.

After scrolling through a dozen or so random profiles, I was pretty much ready to write the site off as a vanity display for techno hipsters, models, and sensitive photographers.

I changed my mind. At least, I think I did. And I’ll tell you why.

After hemming and hawing, I actually sat down to create a profile. “Well, I should at least reserve my name before someone else does,” was my reasoning.

If that wasn’t enough motivation, then I read that AOL acquired About.me four days after the site launched publicly in December 2010. I figured I’d join the 400,000 people who signed up for beta, make a profile, then wait and see if it takes off or fizzles. No harm done either way.

It took me all of 10 minutes, if that, to write a few lines about myself, then link in all my online accounts (Twitter, Facebook, Flickr, Foursquare, and LinkedIn) and add a few URLs (my food blog and my personal blog).

I decided to forgo the mega huge background image of myself. That seemed a little too much like MySpace bathroom photography to me. Here’s what I wound up with:

Yep, you read that right: I can reach 13,000 people online every day. (I’m not famous. How the heck did that happen?)

And that’s what made me reconsider About.me’s value.

Let me back up.

Personal analytics

Once I created my profile, I took a look at the back-end beta dashboard that the site offers. (Hello, personal analytics. Self indulgent? Sure. Are you curious? I’d wager you might be.)

About.me aggregates the activity of all your linked accounts for you—i.e. how many followers you have, who retweets you the most, who @ mentions you, etc.

When I saw the numbers all on one screen, it hit me. For someone who’s worked in advertising and publishing for years, I really never stopped to think (like, really think) about how many people I can theoretically connect with online everyday. Kind of obvious, I know.

As someone who came up working at newspapers and magazines, I’ve been intimately concerned with “circulation” and “reach” since I started working. Being social today means you quantify and qualify yourself in terms of followers, fans, friends, and feedback. It kind of amounts to the same thing. Again, kind of obvious.

I’m intimately familiar with doing this kind of thing for other people. I guess I just never thought about doing it for myself.

Here, see what I mean.

My food blog, The Hungry Mouse, is read by an average of something like 125,000 people a month. Call that 4,000 people a day. I’m connected to almost 3,000 people on Twitter. Between friends and fans, I hit more than 6,000 people on Facebook. Toss in a couple hundred more from Foursquare and LinkedIn.

Of course, like with any medium, it’s not the numbers that really matter in the end. It’s what you do with them. And what you can get them to do for you.

So what?

So am I a sucker for signing up for yet another online service? Maybe. I mean, we’ll see how useful it actually proves to be.

Regardless, I will say this: About.me did make me stop and think about the power of a single voice—and how your online presence can amplify it a thousand-fold.

I know there are a lot of other things to consider. Quality of message. Quality of followers. Stickiness. Retweetability. Etc.

But still. It’s a starting point. (Or a jumping off point.) And everyone can use one of those.

I know you’re probably saying to yourself: So, you can reach 13,000 people, kid. So what?

Honestly, I’m not entirely sure. But it gave me a lot to think about. I can tell you one thing, though: You can bet you’ll be hearing more from me. And soon.

How about you?

If you work in the industry, I’m sure you know the social stats—and their implications—for your clients and the big brands you follow. But have you ever stopped to do the math on yourself?