Saturday, August 29, 2009

Web Personas

I was reading on CNN.com about the resurgence of portraits as a result of social media, and there was a link to the MIT-based Personas project. Apparently, this is how the internet sees me:



You type in your name at the prompt and it analyzes data about you on the web to learn about you--or how you are PERCEIVED by your cookies, your searches, your web shopping, articles published about you on the web, and whatnot. Above is the result of my entering my first and last names. Very interesting no? The largest sections are "Family" and "Education." It makse sense that "Education" is big because there was alot online when I graduated from high school and college and law school. I think "Family" is so big because there was someone else with my name who lived in 17th century France who is in a lot of geneology charts. The "Sports" section is big. WHY?? So is "Management." Eh?




Ok, so here is what it looks like if I put in my first, middle, and last names:




Really strange, huh? Has anyone else done this little experiment? Is how the internet perceives you different than how you perceive yourself??


4 comments:

Veronica Cuevas said...

I just tried it and apparently there are no digital traces of me! In other words, I do not exist on the internets. They clearly have it all wrong!

Michelle | When I Grow Up Coach said...

There were LOTS of Michelle Wards that came up, but none of them were me! Off to learn Google SEO....:)

Unknown said...

I had a huge chunk of mine that said genealogy when I put my middle name in too. but maybe that's just because there's really not a whole lot out there with peoples middle names? also hard telling how much of the Allison Douglas on the internet is actually ME. sigh. but apparently some of it is illegal!

Kimberly said...

I got 3/4s sports and 1/4 legal. ???