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8/20/2009

What's your online DNA?

Want to know what your online DNA looks like? Well check out this online project from MIT Media Lab, Personas.

"Personas is a component of the Metropath(ologies) exhibit, currently on display at the MIT Museum by the Sociable Media Group from the MIT Media Lab. It uses sophisticated natural language processing and the Internet to create a data portrait of one's aggregated online identity. In short, Personas shows you how the Internet sees you."

In reality Personas doesn't really show you how the Internet sees you. More accurately put, it actually shows you how the Internet views your name (or any two word combination you want to run through it). If you have a unique name, it's an interesting experiment.

Here's a look at my results:


And a composite of the data that it scrubbed to create it.

Find out what the online DNA for your name looks like here.

Related post: What's your digital footprint?


4 comments:

dawn said...

Helene,
I have seen others try this test, so I thought I'd give it a whirl.However,
I happen to have a common name. The other people with my name seemed to greatly affect my results.

Although the line was pretty it didn't create my persona.

Cat Herself said...

I'm in the same boat as d. I didn't even bother trying my real name because it's so common, so I tried my web name, and it shot back some odd results, too, since it's a real word that is used often in music reviews. LOL Fun to play with, though.

Steve Campion said...

Interesting effect. It looks like the algorithm counts words within predefined categories. My name's not too common but a namesake photographer in Missouri and an athlete and minister in England are enough to skew the results a tad. Thanks for sharing this, Helene.

Bobbi Newman said...

I think mine was skewed by the Bobbi Newman who is a relationship counselor and the one in England who's mothers stole the money from her daughters class. I need a more unique name! :-)