French Media create Portrait of Person from Info Gathered from Social Networking Sites

Just in time for our discussion on personal branding and online privacy issues, I stumbled upon this intriguing story: Earlier this month, a French magazine called Le Tigre, published an intimate portrait of a randomly chosen Internet user laced with private information the reporter garnered from social networking sites around the web. The idea was to pick a complete stranger and to tell his life story based on the digital footprint that person either voluntarily or involuntarily left behind on the Internet. The magazine thereby tried to call attention to the fact that most people don't think about the bits of private information they share online, but that these pieces of information, once aggregated, draw a cohesive and troublingly intimate picture of our lives.

The point here: when you share information online, you've left the private sphere and shouldn't expect to keep that info protected. A good lesson for us all to learn!

Since publishing the Google portrait of Marc L. (the person featured in this article), the magazine had to change all references to cities, places, etc. The original article only rendered the names of the characters anonymous.

Indeed, Google has a long memory

We ended today's class on blogging and personal brand management discussing the idea that Google has a really good memory. When I came back to my office and opened my RSS reader, I thought what better example to illustrate this point than the United Airlines Bankruptcy story. Granted, this story doesn't pertain to a personal brand, but it definitely shows that information on the Internet lives on long after it isn't news any longer. Here's a timeline of what happened (as I understand it):

2002: The Chicago Tribune publishes an article announcing that United Airlines will be filing for bankruptcy.

Sept. 06, 2008: 

1. The 2002 story reappears on the Florida's Sun-Sentinel's website. According to Gawker, the page also contained a map of hurricane Ike giving the impression that this was a new story
2. According to Google's blog: Google crawler discovered a new link on the Florida Sun-Sentinel website in a section of the most viewed stories labeled "Popular Stories: Business" and followed it to an article on United Airlines filing for bankruptcy. It concluded that the article date was Sept. 7th, 2008, indexed the page and made it available through Google News search

Sept. 8, 2008:

1. A reporter googling bankruptcies on Google's News search picks up the story from the Florida Sun Sentinel and supplies it to the Bloomberg news service
   
2. Bloomberg sends out the story
3. Within minutes United Airlines' shares sink 75% 
4. Oops!

This should go to show that even 6-year-old information can still come to hurt you...

Ps: Steve Rubel just published an interesting post discussing the role of news aggregators in this debacle.

Lively: Google's answer to Second Life

Yesterday Google officially launched Lively - a Google version of Second Life. I just checked it out. Had to switch to a PC to do it though since Lively currently only supports Windows XP or Vista.The avatars remind me a bit of a mixture of Bratz dolls and Pet Shop animals... Anyways, here's the office I created:

Avoiding the Google Netherworld

The fact that Google has an excellent memory and that it rarely forgets big bloopers or faux pas, shouldn't come as a surprise to anyone in this class. After all, we've already examined plenty of examples of "Google Wrath": Vincent Ferrari and his attempt at canceling his AOL account, Jeff Jarvis and his DellHell blog post, the ComCast technician falling asleep on a customer's couch, etc. Today's example of a PR pitch turned ugly (thanks to Dr. Russell's WOM class blog for bringing this to my attention) and of a CEO's fears of entering the Google netherworld as a consequence, is another great reminder of the power of Google. What's particularly interesting in this case is the fact that a Google search of the name of the PR firm tied to the pitch, already returns Odden's blog post among the first 10 search results - regardless of what their true intentions were. And that's a big problem for their online reputation! Especially when considering that Google ranks among the top three news sources opinion leaders rely on most for obtaining information on companies (according to the 2008 Edelman Trust Barometer results).

Google's inner workings explained

Since search engine rankings are equivalent to influence in this Web 2.0 world, it seems like a good idea to take a closer look at the inner workings of the mother of all search engines - Google. More than half of all online searches are currently run by Google!

This page does a great job visualizing what takes place behind the scenes when an Internet user runs a search on Google. This site doesn't discuss Google's search algorithm, but rather focuses on the logistics of running the search.