The Department of Psychology at the University of Texas published a study that found that Facebook users are no different online than they are offline.

"Manifestations of Personality in Online Social Networks: Self-Reported Facebook-Related Behaviors and Observable Profile Information" published in Cyberpsychology, Behavior, and Social Networking. Unsurprisingly the study revealed strong connections between real personality and online-related behaviour.

Professor Samuel D. Gosling and his colleagues found that self-reported personality traits are accurately reflected in online social networks such as Facebook by looking at the big five personality traits - openness, conscientiousness, extraversion, agreeableness and neuroticism.

There are two studies covered in the paper

Study 1

Researchers examined personality and self-reported Facebook-related behaviors. The study drew 159 participants from a psychology student study pool at Washington University in St. Louis; 68% were female. Of those who shared their ethnicity, the numbers boiled down to 7% African-American, 18% Asian, 68% white or Caucasian and 6% other. Study subjects were assessed using the Ten Item Personality Inventory and 11-item self-reported Facebook-specific activities.

Extroverted Facebook users reported the most friends and highest engagement levels. Conscientious types, who are characterized as disciplined, organized and achievement-oriented, reported the least Facebook usage across the board. Overall, extroverts tended to engage more than introverts.

Facebook might not be a real-world coffee shop or a bar, spaces where real-life social interaction occur, but it certainly is a space where extraverts seek out virtual social engagement.

Study 2

Personality and Observable Information on Facebook Profiles, "researchers examined whether objectively assessed observable information found on Facebook profiles was associated with personality traits. One-hundred and thirty-three people from the University of Texas at Austin received $10 compensation, were entered into a lottery to win $100 in exchange and received partial fulfillment of course requirements if they were already enrolled in Introductory Psychology. The participants signed up via the Web; they did not know that this study was about Facebook. Of participants, 61% were female. Forty-two percent were Asian, Asian-American, Indian or Pacific-Islander; 53% Caucasian or white; 13% Hispanic or Latino/a; 9% black or African-American and 2% other.

The researchers saved the Facebook profiles of participants after they signed up so that participants would not be able to alter anything before the research officially began. After that, nine undergraduate research assistants (five female, four male) rated the personality of the 133 participants based only on their Facebook profiles. If the observers realized that they already knew one of the participants in an offline context, their ratings were not used.

Individual Facebook profiles were coded with eight types of information: number of photos, number of photo albums (some were user-generated wall photos, others thematic), number of words in the free-response "about me" section, number of wall posts, number of groups, number of friends in local network based on region or organization, total number of friends, number of networks (groups linked by a common region or organization). The researchers found a number of links between observable information on Facebook profiles and the users' actual personalities….. Extraversion was correlated with the number of friends overall and the number of friends in the local network. These personality types seek out virtual social contact and were more engaged in online social experience than introverts.

The other dimension associated with information was openness, which correlated with number of friends in both local and total networks. The researchers did not discover a correlation between conscientiousness or agreeableness and observable profile information. Openness was expressed through exploring new activities, meeting people and changing the visual scenery. Neuroticism was not easy readable on Facebook; researchers found it difficult to judge by outside observers, especially in relation to more observable traits like extroversion. The study also found that low-conscientious procrastinators used Facebook as a way to avoid doing actual work.

The study determined that online social networks are not an escape from reality, but rather a microcosm of peoples' larger social worlds and an extension of offline behaviors.

This follows the story of Kaliya (Identity Woman) who still can't do this 

Nymwars: IRL on Google's Lawns.

We need to bring this struggle to Google IRL (In Real Life - physical, real world, meet space). Here is my thinking on why and my ideas about how.

WHY: Even women with privileged access to Google insiders and who have real name handle combinations are not getting reinstated.

Also read Steve Lockstep -- : http://lockstep.com.au/blog/2011/08/08/real-names-is-real-sly

LinkedIn has launched the LinkedIn Connection Timeline and provides a way to remember people you used to work with throughout the years and see where they are now – how some have changed. The visualization illustrates “the tip of an iceberg” of structured social data could provide when accessible.

The obvious next step is for other social graphs that show the timeline of who I connected to, when and the levels of interaction (rather link XOBNI + Memolane)

Is there a model?  Brand, loyalty, discussion, marketing, viral, value – probably!

This is driven by a thought - is there a flaw in personalisation?

Most TV service providers now recognise that there is a need to incorporate recommendation as part of their content discovery mix - according to TV Genius. Depending on the provider, this can be a matter of personalising the video-on-demand store, promoting premium TV channels, or driving viewers to video-on-demand services from within the traditional EPG. All of these solutions have appeal to different demographic groups, but recent research they have conducted shows that a much broader content discovery solution is required.  After all, not every user has the same exact content discovery needs; while some viewers know exactly what they want, others are simply browsing for something new to watch.

 So segmentation could look like ..... with each group having very different content discovery behaviours.

1. Socialites: Influenced by friends and family, channel surfing, and web and mobile

2. Progressives: Influenced by web and mobile content

3. Reactives: Influenced by channel surfing and on-air trailers

4. Traditionals: Influenced by newspapers, magazines, and on-air trailers

5.  TV addicts: Influenced by on-air trailers, the EPG, and web and mobile content  

So the question is does personalisation work or is it broken.....

In the book I looked at this problem and concluded that you needed two types of input/ feedback for personalisation/ recommendation to work.  Your own personal preferences (for improvement and refinement) and trends from a wider community (for colour, flavour and breath)

This is so much more eloquently put by Eli Pariser: Beware online "filter bubbles"   in his TED talk and read the comments at the end.

 However, I agree with the outcome - if we depend on the algorithm to much we are doomed.

Image from Life Hacker which also has a good blog on the topic of Do Not Track

Edward Markey (D-Mass) and Joe Barton (R-Texas) have released a discussion draft  “Do Not Track Kids Act of 2011 (for the USA)."

Views based on a very quick read of a bill which is intended to help safeguard kids’ privacy online, has provisions of wider interest:

(1) New regulations aimed at limiting data collection about children and teens, including

          (a) expansion of the Children’s Online Privacy Protection Act (COPPA) of 1998, which would build upon COPPA’s “verifiable parental consent” model; and

          (b) a new “Digital Marketing Bill of Rights for Teens;” and

          (c) limits on collection of geolocation information about both children and teens.

(2) An Internet “Eraser Button” for Kids to help kids wipe out embarrassing facts they have place online but later come to regret.  Specifically, the bill would require online operators “to the extent technologically feasible, to implement mechanisms that permit users of the website, service, or application of the operator to erase or otherwise eliminate content that is publicly available through the website, service, or application and contains or displays personal information of children or minors.” One could say that this is modelled on a similar ideal currently being proposed in the EU, the  “right to be forgotten” online.

I expect that some of these ideals should be put into context with a recommended read of  "Delete: The Virtue of Forgetting in the Digital Age" by Viktor Mayer-Schonberger 

However, similar proposals have been presented (in the US) by the child safety group Common Sense Media (CSM)  The driving fear (always a good seller along with uncertainty and doubt) is that there is simply too much information about kids online today or that kids are voluntarily placing far too much personal information online that could come back to haunt them in the future. However, it is worth reading "Consumer Kids: How big business is grooming our children for profit" by Ed Mayo and Agnes Nairn to take a wider perspective on the issue.

Whilst totally valid concerns; fears based on old regulation and rules may not be the best route to winning the battle. Quoting Douglas Adams think Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy - "Anything invented before your fifteenth birthday is the order of nature. That's how it should be. Anything invented between your 15th and 35th birthday is new and exciting, and you might get a career there. Anything invented after that day, however, is against nature and should be prohibited."  Further, some original research done by Orange in 2004/5 asked why kids love technology and concluded it was the place where they "escape parental control".  With this in mind - reasons to be thoughtful.

• If we want advertising to work and allow us to have access to free services; we need to able companies to track and measure something

• Is this about bad parenting and poor education or an understanding that our kids will push the boundary - they (we) are programmed to do it.

• “Do Not Track Kids” probably requires mandatory online age verification for everyone. Ignoring freedom and rights as the (The Child Online Protection Act violated the First Amendment), Age verification is really easy to defraud and very expensive to implement.  Parents today buy their kids fake ID to enable the more freedom.  Protection or nanny?

• An Internet “Eraser Button”  ignoring the freedom of speech and cost issues. What happens when someone wants to tidy up something, that is relevant to stop them from working with some venerable sector of society.  The unintended consequences are far greater - the issue here is about the ideal of perfect memory and the ability for the Internet to recall, hence the ideals about the right to be forgotten.  The wider and more complex issue is why do we even store data - it is down to government regulation and wanting to know about its citizens.  How about we don't collect and store data as an alternative starting block?

• We know that early (learned) patterns are harder to break, hence the reason that getting to them young is so important to build habits (PS I was young once) and I do have a choice (I think)

• ‘Legislate & Regulate’ vs. ‘Educate & Empower.’ Old by relevant viewpoint paper from the US COPPA 2.0: The New Battle over Privacy, Age Verification, Online Safety & Free Speech

So where does this leave us apart from confused and south of Watford.

There is no quick fix and building new rules, guidelines and protection on the back of broken laws and regulations is not going to help.  The Ryan Giggs/ super-injunction/ Twitter/ privacy debate in the UK this week (May 2011) is a prefect example of why we need Government to step up; stop judges making new laws from old and start with something that is fit for purpose.....  tough challenges ahead and as it will not be a vote winner so I don't hold out much hope.....

Trying to find a route to differentiate between pulses, waves and signals.  Next, what is the underlying data and how do they link to these….

Assuming that our data is either in our control or not then data must be part of the big digital game being played. But what are the levels of the game?

At the entry level you have total control and you basic access to a service called private

If we so choose we could allow others to use (not copy, take, image or cut) our data and run it through an algorithm so that we have access to the personalisation level.  No real data is given up and most things are in our control.

If we want access to the volume level (effect) you must share your data but you gain access to the authority and recognition levels for your original work, but you need to be “liked”

The only way to gain access to the final and highest level - the multiplier effect or celebrity status is to give up everything and risk it.

I, along with you are creating a new cottage industry targeted at us focused on managing, or even erasing, my ‘digital footprint.’ Because I continually create a presence on new sites then promptly forget about them.

Icorrect, QuickRepair, Personal, SafetyWeband MyID.com, for example promise some form of online protection, at a price based on the fear that someone can steal your Digital Footprint, reputation, identity. The services “continuously monitor” your online presence and alert you when something occurs

But is a Facebook account or your name appearing in a Google search really something to be concerned about and why should you part with some hard-earned money?

Time magazine writer Joel Stein, for one, thinks not. In an extensive story on the topic, Stein offered himself up as an example, having data-mining companies like RapLeaf, EXelate, and Intellidyn dig into his files, researching his own profiles with ad-targeting companies from Google to Yahoo! and paying online privacy firms to clear his ‘digital footprint’ for him.

Stein’s takeaway?  It’s all more hype than necessity.

Unsurprisingly I read a lot about “digital footprints” and have several daily feeds.  Everyday there is at least one story of someone saying that they have no digital footprint as they cannot be found by their most favoured search engine (Google, Bing, Yahoo, AOL, RoW). I am not surprised that so many find digital identity, footprint and reputation extremely hard concepts to grasp.

Whilst we know page rank is the Google algorithm for indexing, what appears to be missing is the understanding that your own page, blog, quote, newspaper article may not be that interesting to everyone and that others do have the same name as you (I am aware of over 600 other Tony Fish’s – excluding those called Tony who own Fish and Chip shops)

Just because you are not listed in Google does not mean you don’t have a digital footprint.  Indeed most of you data will be in private data silos owned by a corporate think about your loyalty card providers, your bank, your ISP or mobile phone operator.