What's In A Name?

More specifically, what’s in your name? That’s the question that MIT PhD candidate Aaron Zinman wanted to find out. Using data mining techniques, Zinman created Personas, a Web site that develops a profile of a person based on the person’s name. The application searches through the Web collecting data from 28 broad subject areas that Zinman defined, and sorts the results based on his categories. The result is a composite image, reminiscent of a DNA radiograph that’s supposed to profile the subject of the search. The tool isn’t precise enough to distinguish among people who share a name, so the results are likely to be a mish-mash of relevant and irrelevant observations.

So is Personas the next level of online privacy intrusion? Unlikely… at least for the moment. Personas is actually a part of a broader exhibit of Data Portraits at the MIT Museum that examines new communications technologies specifically as they relate to social media. The interactive exhibit was produced by the Sociable Media Group and includes commentary on the volume of information that’s routinely available. The exhibit also enables viewers to participate in the exhibit by adding their images, voices and basic personal information into the data stream.

Other portions of the exhibit examine the impact of email communication on personal relationships; whether writers can be defined by their Twitter tweets; and a hybrid virtual-physical café where remote visitors can interact with café patrons via different forms of electronic communication.
So, what’s in your name?