Tuesday, August 25, 2009

My Persona

Have you ever wondered what the web thinks of you? Now you can find out when you play with a new online toy called Personas*, a program which "creates a personal online data portrait" of you, based on what it finds as it "scours the Web for information and attempts to characterize your Web identity."



It's name-based, kind of like Googling yourself and getting a color-coded bar graph of topics associated with your name; takes a few minutes even on broadband but it's interesting to see the results. I was happy to see from my results that I'm mainly identified with books (click on above image to see larger version), but sports? Politics? I don't think so . . .

*Link swiped from Warren Riddle over at Switched.

20 comments:

  1. Apparently, I'm primarily identified with "books" too. Followed by "social", "news", and "design" (?).
    And for some reason it didn't take long at all. (snort!)

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  2. *G* I'm identified with books, too.

    Mine's still running...geez.

    One thing that's giving me a giggle? Sports. Um. no. Not me.

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  3. Alas, when you have a common name--and I didn't realize how common mine was pre-Internet--the resulting bar chart contains an odd mix of references.
    Still, it was fun to do!

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  4. That was fascinating. I should Google myself more often. I was surprised at how much was said about me.

    I have no idea where the "sports" came from. And "fame"? LOL!

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  5. I tried it out, but it's seems to be pulling a lot from the other B.E. Sanderson (who's a doctor doing research into stuff I don't want to know about) and every place that says 'be Sanderson'. As a result, mine graph has big chunks of medicine and religion - totally not me. It's a fun exercise, though. Thanks, Lynn. =o)

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  6. Keita Haruka9:54 AM

    lol! Gods...:P Mine has several big blocks and just a few small ones. It's accurate in that much at least, as i'm into a lot of things. The biggest blocks are fashion (What? fashion? MEEEE?? Haaaaaaaahahaha!), design (Um...okay...), politics(I HATE politics. I don't even comment on it), family (um...well, I guess so)and online (which is VERY accurate). The rest are books, education, movies, music, social, religious, professional and fame. :P Crikey....

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  7. I'm trying to figure out what the "illegal" section is related to. I don't DO illegal things -- online or off -- so what does it mean?

    Other than that, pretty cool.

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  8. Anonymous11:10 AM

    I'm getting ready to try this, it should be fun. I'd also like to know who are the men on your book?

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  9. I got books, online, education and geneology (?!) as my biggies. Not huge, but surprising were aggression and illegal. What the...?!

    I'm surprised art and family were so small. I have no idea how fashion got on, unless it's preceded by "has no.."

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  10. AnnaM.3:31 PM

    It wasn't accurate for me because it added in the several other folks with my name on the web. Thereby, Sports, became my biggest thing even though I have nothing to do with it. A couple of the other Anna's are apparently runners or something.

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  11. OMG! I don't exist!! At least not the 'real' me.

    The persona I post under has 'online' as the biggie. Gee, wonder why :p And 'accident' at the end. Very odd...

    Interestingly enough, my pen name came up with that 'other singer who is a retired opera star' and still the books section is bigger.

    I could get in trouble with this. I'd be putting everyone's name in and never getting anything done!

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  12. Funny that I'm primarily books as well.
    I'm surprised, looking at yours, Lynn, that art isn't bigger. But I guess, art & design (patterns and such) sort of blend in a lot of your posts, so that's why.

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  13. Wow. Sports came in top of the wazza followed by education and social; books and online were of equal measure.

    Fame was a larger chunk than I expected; I am, at heart, a shy person. (Although I do believe there's a fashion model of the same name.

    Still, it was an eye opener.

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  14. Anonymous10:27 PM

    Dude. Freaky. It's taking forever for mine to load but I can tell you this much already - my pen name has a much more interesting profile than I do.

    And now I have a tune in my head. Dum dum dadadada dum dum MY PERSONA dum dum dadadada dum dum MY PERSONA...

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  15. It keeps telling me to increase my window size, which is already maximised. Oh well.

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  16. Anonymous4:39 AM

    Fascinating! Thank you for sharing. Although, I'm a little bewildered that it comes with "aggression" for me. Still very interesting :)

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  17. nice post, very informative!!!

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  18. Mine is odd...

    big parts books, online, and social then spors (???) education, movies, fame, news, politics, family, design, genealogy, religious and musical...

    Its interesting as I watched it trigger certain words.

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  19. Agreed. Really odd. I was associated mainly with sports and military--neither of which I ever go online to read about or follow.

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  20. this here is sa very good blog...only what i can say...good work:D

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