I don't think it's mandatory to become a different kind of person or to market yourself in extroverted ways. I think you could get that effect with subtler things. I guess we often treat our works and online presence (as in open source or open access projects) as functional non-human items. Maybe if we saw them more as extensions of the author...

Ah, you've beet me to it skrebbel. :) I actually wanted to write something like this. It's really hard to be what you are (in my case - a very introverted and private person), give something valuable to the world and actually live from that. That would be a beautiful life, really.

p.s. Not saying there are no people who didn't manage to pull it off, but I'm pretty sure those people are exceptions rather than the rule.

fwiw I'm super extroverted and I still get stressed out about the idea of becoming an internet personality :-)

Haha.. Well in every "group" there are exceptions. It's like a Yin and yang thing I guess :)