My Digital FootPrint

I will attending and working with the team on the Personal Data Day on Friday May 13th at Guoman Tower Hotel, London  The online registration page is at http://www.newdigitaleconomics.com/EMEA_May2011/register.cgi and the 20% discount code is VIP946 (this needs to be entered into the box at the top of the page)

from http://www.theconversationprism.com/

by Vikram P. Munishwa and Nael B. Abu-Ghazaleh ABSTRACT Smartphones have revolutionized the way in which sensing has been performed traditionally. The people-centric nature of smartphone-based sensing enables them to be a part of participatory or opportunistic sensing, where data is collected on a set of designated smartphones and delivered to a server. In this work, we identify the existence of another type of behavior, where the data is not delivered but archived locally on the phones for later retrieval. This type of behavior is common when the phone users capture some data (e.g. a video clip) out of their own interest. However, this complicates the future data retrievals due to the uncontrolled mobility of the data-capturing smartphones. Specially, the research challenges for later data retrieval include finding the current locations of the required subset of the mobile phones that were present in a specific region at a specific time, without compromising location and identity ...

I wanted to play with some of LinkedIn's social news service , LinkedIn Skills , and  visualisations of your network (above) but could not - anyone been able to play any is it any good?

According to Samy Kamkar on this Blog post - and having tried it, it is spot on. android map  exposes the data that Google has been collecting from virtually all Android devices and street view cars, using them essentially as global wardriving machines.  When the phone detects any wireless network, encrypted or otherwise, it sends the BSSID (MAC address) of the router along with signal strength, and most importantly, GPS coordinates up to  the mothership . This page allows you to ping that database and find exactly where any wi-fi router in the world is located.  You can enter any router BSSID/MAC address to locate the exact physical location below, or try his demonstration router by hitting "Probe" ------ Personally tried and it is 100% spot on as per my image. I then looked up the IP address and this told me who owns the IP pipe and most likely the company I am sitting at.  I could do the same with a search at Companies House and the a...

Original article is at MarketPlace,  Tuesday, April 26, 2011    Listen to this Story University of Chicago economist Richard Thaler discusses why he believes businesses that (the) collect(ors of) our data should give it back to us so that we can use it. KAI RYSSDAL: There's almost nothing you can do in this digital economy -- from using a smartphone to getting cash out of an ATM -- that doesn't leave some kind of digital footprint. Companies use that data, as we know, to make money -- which for some people rankles on two counts. One, the privacy part of it. Two, it's our data. And more often than not, the businesses that collect it have no interest whatsoever in sharing it with us. University of Chicago economist Richard Thaler says they ought to. Richard Thaler, good to have you with us. RICHARD THALER: Thanks Kai. RYSSDAL: So your basic idea is you want to have companies give all of this data that they gather on us back to us so we can use it. ...

Original blog and more graphics are here http://blog.nielsen.com/nielsenwire/online_mobile/privacy-please-u-s-smartphone-app-users-concerned-with-privacy-when-it-comes-to-location/ Not sure that a margin of 7% is that big or that the concerned, indifferent, no concerned are great buckets - I think this is about headlines rather than a story Most females I know raise different issues about time delays, value, who, sharing, why etc. It would be far better to focus on how you can add value to location?

<br/>Source: eLocal.com <br/>

image from http://jaced.com/ Over the Easter weekend the family debate centred on Facebook, what is it and why. The most acceptable phase was "Facebook is a tool in the Internet toolbox"  A tool being, by example, a hammer.  The key point being that there are lots of types of hammers from very specialist such as thatching, to the brut force of a sledge hammer.  Therefore, depending on what you need to do you will pick the right hammer for the job.  Facebook is a tool (platform) and it will do what you want it to do.   Like a normal tool; screwdriver or hammer, if used for the right job in the right way all is good, however in the wrong hands it can be used for harm.   We did not work out what it is - but at least we could all agree that we had different views of what you can do with it! 

image from http://jaced.com/ Over the Easter weekend the family debate centred on Facebook, what is it and why. The most acceptable phase was "Facebook is a tool in the Internet toolbox"  A tool being, by example, a hammer.  The key point being that there are lots of types of hammers from very specialist such as thatching, to the brut force of a sledge hammer.  Therefore, depending on what you need to do you will pick the right hammer for the job.  Facebook is a tool (platform) and it will do what you want it to do.   Like a normal tool; screwdriver or hammer, if used for the right job in the right way all is good, however in the wrong hands it can be used for harm.   We did not work out what it is - but at least we could all agree that we had different views of what you can do with it! 

image from http://jaced.com/ Over the Easter weekend the family debate centred on Facebook, what is it and why. The most acceptable phase was "Facebook is a tool in the Internet toolbox"  A tool being, by example, a hammer.  The key point being that there are lots of types of hammers from very specialist such as thatching, to the brut force of a sledge hammer.  Therefore, depending on what you need to do you will pick the right hammer for the job.  Facebook is a tool (platform) and it will do what you want it to do.   Like a normal tool; screwdriver or hammer, if used for the right job in the right way all is good, however in the wrong hands it can be used for harm.   We did not work out what it is - but at least we could all agree that we had different views of what you can do with it! 

image from http://jaced.com/ Over the Easter weekend the family debate centred on Facebook, what is it and why. The most acceptable phase was "Facebook is a tool in the Internet toolbox"  A tool being, by example, a hammer.  The key point being that there are lots of types of hammers from very specialist such as thatching, to the brut force of a sledge hammer.  Therefore, depending on what you need to do you will pick the right hammer for the job.  Facebook is a tool (platform) and it will do what you want it to do.   Like a normal tool; screwdriver or hammer, if used for the right job in the right way all is good, however in the wrong hands it can be used for harm.   We did not work out what it is - but at least we could all agree that we had different views of what you can do with it! 

image from http://jaced.com/ Over the Easter weekend the family debate centred on Facebook, what is it and why. The most acceptable phase was "Facebook is a tool in the Internet toolbox"  A tool being, by example, a hammer.  The key point being that there are lots of types of hammers from very specialist such as thatching, to the brut force of a sledge hammer.  Therefore, depending on what you need to do you will pick the right hammer for the job.  Facebook is a tool (platform) and it will do what you want it to do.   Like a normal tool; screwdriver or hammer, if used for the right job in the right way all is good, however in the wrong hands it can be used for harm.   We did not work out what it is - but at least we could all agree that we had different views of what you can do with it! 

The original article is by Ajit Jaokar Could the Real time web do for Retail as advertising did for Search? Ajit's blog arises from two recent conversations.... -          Earlier this week, I was in Brussels and discussed the future of the Web in a number of conversations with MEPs  which was based on the significance of the Real Time Web and -          I  blogged about the significance of the Real time Web  in conversation with  @tonia_ries ;  organizer of  The Real Time Report conference  in New York, which I am attending in June. Tonia came up with a succinct equation: value (for content) = time + place + shared interest Coming from a background of mobile and social media, for a long time, Telecom Operators have drooled at the idea of the proverbial ‘starbucks model’. While Starbucks never launched any such service as far as I know...

"I love being able to pay bills"  doesn't mean I like actually paying them. I am on the search for phrases and word sets that allow me to test a number of algorithms to see if there is actually understanding/ correct interpretation.  The point is to look at the data (metadata) and determine insight and not facts.  The trick to engagement based on what the data tells your; is how the insight is presented back All ideas welcome.

Ex-Goldman Sachs Banker Starts Hedge Fund Analyzing Japanese Blog Traffic  Article from Bloomberg  which describes the strategy: The fund exploits the increasing traffic of information on the Internet by tracking about 20 million blogs in Japanese with keywords that may affect the moves of Nikkei 225 futures, according to Matsuo.

When you observe something once it is an outlier, twice is lucky and three is a trend. Social networks by their very nature are public and open.  Venture money and marketing like open, big and public as the numbers tend to add up.  With 10% of the worlds population now on one big network (and the same 10% on numerous other small ones) what do the other 90% do, maybe they go for niche private social networks oriented to their specific need? Here are several that need to be categorized and put into a fancy four quadrant matrix (enterprise, family, collaboration, messaging) Flink12 ,  SocialGo , ChatterTree , Yammer ,   Beluga  (Facebook) and  Disco (Google) and I am yet to be convinced if privacy is the issue that will drive niche or actually a desire to find value for the individuals! An issue for those who join the small ones is that they may miss out on the ease of connection and have their data in a stove pipe that prevents it creating value (but tha...

White Horse have published a report called Lost in Geolocation, why consumers haven’t bought it and how marketers can fix it.  Warning it took am an age to download it, but worth a read and there are some great graphics in it. Executive Summary Our research generated four key findings:  Location-based services have not yet reached the tipping point.  The chief barriers today are a lack of clear benefit and privacy fears.  Users are mostly young, active contributors to social networks.  Marketers will need to create and test new geolocation experiences that are not generic but relevant to a particular brand and audience.

The LSE is working on Kids OnLine II There is a lot of data and primary research here from Kids I Their latest report on social networking, age and privacy is here

For those who follow what is happening China Publishes Draft Privacy Guidelines from Hogan Lovells.  In summary – this adds a new level of complexity and there will be a race to the most stringent if the EU has anything to do with it as they want everyone to adhere to their rules!

Mashable ran a post “ Tag a TV Ad, Get a Free Pepsi ”  I posted about IntoNow earlier this week under Snooping: it’s not a crime, it’s a feature . However this campaign rewards the user for finding a Pepsi MAX ad and the reward is a coupon that gets redeemed and closes the loop from commercial to yes I gave you my attention (but I would have anyway as I love Pepsi)

Between all the social apps, tools, services and systems you can work out who I am, where I am and who I am doing it with. Empire Avenue now adds a “value” to this based on some loose gameification stock market model… I am sure it looks better on the second or third time. Brands can work out who they want to align too without this model but if you want to buy me – please do!

The issue is not the framework but who wants to control you, your data and how do they give power to you if you want it?  [slideshare id=7557447&w=425&h=355&sc=no] 

In the mist of understanding Facebook privacy and Apple location data issues – what about your Tweets, who owns them? This is a top blog at techblawg “ who owns your tweets ” The summary is:   You write it, you own it unless you are employed, bound by a contract, gave rights or did not quite understand that you were hoodwinked by someone else and that is whilst you are alive – when your dead it is a whole different problem.

Full study - The Failure of Online Social Network Privacy Settings Researchers from Columbia University have completed a study determining Facebook users' perceptions of their privacy settings. By tracking and interviewing 65 students aged 18 to 25, they found that every single one of the participants were sharing personal information in ways they hadn't intended when setting up their privacy settings. While 95% of participants were initially confident that their settings protected the information they wanted to protect, participants eventually found that information they wanted to hide was public (93.8%), and information they wanted to share was hidden (84%). Also in the study, users' most important reasons for protecting their privacy online was to protect their online reputation (49%), to safeguard against identity theft and other economic risks (38%), and to protect against general security threats (12%). Abstract Increasingly, people are sharing sensitive p...

Somewhat amusing infographics and data that you can get from the web. Original post and more data is here http://blog.okcupid.com/index.php/10-charts-about-sex/

If you want some background about the Apple issue I suggest you read materials from Alex Levinson especially his post titled 3 Major Issues with the Latest iPhone Tracking “Discovery” Personally I am not actually bothered that I didn’t read the 15,200 words of the Apple Terms and Conditions to discover that there are 86 words that cover off the use of your location.  I am slightly more worried that the lawyers see a massive opportunity to subpoena your phone and subsequently get your routes and routines which you cannot opt out of other than by not buying the iPhone.  Forget divorce lawyers I would be getting a request for every stop and search. “so where have you been since you bought into Apple sonny” Realising that your location data is cumulative across all your apple devices is probably something we did not realise either and having two phones or throwing away the one that has your hidden life on does not help either….. Is the...

Snooping: It's not a crime, it's a feature . New apps hijack the microphone in your cell phone to listen in on your life Article from ComputerWorld April 2011 or a more original one from ZDnet/ CNet in 2006 "A new class of smartphone app has emerged that uses the microphone built into your phone as a covert listening device -- a "bug," in common parlance. But according to app makers, it's not a bug. It's a feature! The apps use ambient sounds to figure out what you're paying attention to. It's the next best thing to reading your mind." dull, dull dull.   Fear, uncertainty and doubt sell - this is not new and even before apps like  Shazam and SoundHound .  In 2001 I reviewed a plan that wanted to determine what TV channel you were watching and come up with new recommendations based on using the microphone on a cell/ mobile.  There are several still trying such as IntoNow  want more there is a good write up on mashable . Like clicks...

About Give Me My Data Give Me My Data is a Facebook application that helps users export their data out of Facebook. Reasons could include making artwork, archiving and deleting your account, or circumventing the interface Facebook provides. Data can be exported in CSV, XML, and other common formats. Give Me My Data is currently in public-beta. Give Me My Data is developed by  Owen Mundy .  @owenmundy

  In their own words....Greplin is a personal search engine that allows you to search all your online data in one easy place. Greplin indexes the information you create on different websites (like Gmail, Twitter and Facebook) and provides lightning fast search of all your information. Sign up for Greplin  (it's free!) Add as many indexes of your favorite websites as you like Start searching all your data in one place. Immediately   Our goal is to make Greplin the search bar for your life. We want to simplify your personal web experience. Never again will you have to login to multiple websites and dig through mountains of data just to track down a single piece of forgotten information. Our goal is to keep everything in one place, so you can find what you need quickly and easily.     They have taken on an A round from Sequoia   It is neat and a replacement to my google desktop and Xobni but I can see that to monetise they will need to analyse my d...

Inspiring consumer confidence through data privacy legislation is the title of the post by David Hoffman. The full / original source is here Essentially this is about new US law from Sen. John Kerry (D-Mass.) and Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.) introducing the " Commercial Privacy Bill of Rights Act of 2011 ", which is aimed at protecting individuals privacy. David Hoffman, director of security policy and global privacy officer at Intel Corporation believes that federal privacy legislation is essential to individuals’ continued use of and trust in technology, and urges Congress to begin discussion of the bill, so we can establish such a framework of trust.  To which I actually have no major issue with the underlying ideals and principles.  Assuming these principles are : what is yours is yours and you should able to protect it. aka the digital locker, and you should be able to chose how to share your data/ content and with whom and on terms you can control. ...

This new game is based on ZDnet reporting that Google has lost a case in Italy over the defamatory nature of autocomplete suggestions, according to a lawyer for the complainant. http://www.zdnet.co.uk/news/regulation/2011/04/05/google-loses-autocomplete-defamation-case-in-italy-40092392/ So Google is now responsible for all the content on the net as well as indexing it.

I presented a rather poor list of companies here the other day; here is an impressive 88+ list of Projects & Standards for Data Ownership, Identity, & A Federated Social Web thank you @VENESSAMIEMIS http://emergentbydesign.com/2011/04/11/88-projects-standards-for-data-ownership-identity-a-federated-social-web/

The Personal Data Locker Vision Video is from David Siegel @pullnews  (professional) and @_dsiegel  (personal)   http://thepowerofpull.com/pull/the-personal-data-locker-vision-video   I am not disagreeing with the vision, idea or concept but rather that controlling your data means you can control value.  This concept of a personal locker ignores reputation, influence and authority as I comment on in this post - however would it make sense to expand this vision to include the analysis of your data or not - the core issue being you probably don't have access to it.   As an elegant way of looking at some of my data - no issue! - enjoy   [vimeo 14061238 w=400 h=225]  

Signals, spikes, pulses and waves are data that represent your real-time life and controlling them is game changing . The data that underpins signals, spikes, pulses and waves are in silos controlled by the likes of social media, TV, mobile and credit card companies who really don’t want to share, even though it is your data and you could benefit. Privacy as control There is a battle being fought for the protection of your data under the banner of privacy and tends to focus on your actual raw data ( think tweets, location, blogs, updates or Facebook status ) but do I really care about this short term, transient, real-time data or should I care more about what someone can do with the data. Yes control of the source prevents access but does not lead to control of the outcome, but when I consider that my data, on its own, has little value until it is put in context with others from my social group it changes my perception. Considering the central part of the diagram. Knowing th...

This is a diagram from Ajit Jaokar and my book on “ Mobile Web 2.0 ” way back in 2006 when social was new and search was stable. The reason I have dug this up is due to the fundamental changes happening in search.  In old currency terms, search was about indexing the web and making results available and using preferences to improve the relevancy of results.  There was a significant delay (i.e. it was not real time) between content becoming available on-line and it being indexed and then being found via search.  A fundamental to get on page 1 of a search was to be referenced by quality and or authoritative sources.  If your desire was for authority this model worked! The web has become closer to a real-time experience with the advent of service such as Twitter and Facebook and these services are effecting how we discover and interact with content. Search now needs to help you discover spikes, pulses, waves and trends and this is a whole new problem a...

We are on the look out in the digital world for social signals, spikes, pulses, wave and trends and how they are combine to delivery value propositions such as authority, influence and reputation In the physical we are trying to take a known set of inputs and create algorithms so we can interpret what is happening .  However human interaction is not just about the here and now but has deep dependencies on personal history; which introduces a degree of randomness. It is no easier to look for these interpretations when we start to look in detail at what digital data could tell us.  In the book I took a long deep look at what you can do with this data and concluded the value was in the analysis not in the collection. Whilst there are some obvious differences between physical social signals and digital ones an important one is about collection of data as in the physical world you have to collect face, distance and audio data before you can start to work what is going on....

[slideshare id=7527072&w=425&h=355&sc=no]

  This is about social media using engineering terms to try and define/ categorise patterns being seen or looked for in your data. For the purposes of this blog I am currently defining the following:- Social signal (physical) - think physical behavioural signals you give off when interacting. A seemingly erratic behaviour that routine, regular, repeatable and actually has a defined pattern irrespective of who you are. Social signal (digital) - think digital behavioural signals that are a continual feed from digital interactions. Social spike - think spike from a crowd doing the same thing for a short time and then moving on. Social pulse - think regular pattern or behaviour from a crowd when stimulated. Social wave - think growing sentiment of change from a crowd doing something different and moving to a new normal. Social trend - think underlying slow change in the crowd.

  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.

This diagram is from a paper by Vinciarelli,Salamin and Pantic  On Social Signal Processing: Understanding Social Interactions through Nonverbal Behavior Analysis. 2010 More papers on from Alessandro Vinciarelli on analysis of nonverbal-social behavior are here It is an important backdrop to thinking about social signals in a digital domain.

Is there a balance between the size of our network and its composition and our view on sharing?  I would argue that we are more likely to share less as the network grows and become more diverse.   When we start .   The original offline world of physically separated “friends and family” Closed circles of friends with you sharing specific information with each group – controlled by you As we move online. The original offline world reflected in a digital world. Closed groups start to cross over by what I say – I start to limit what I say as the same information goes to everyone As we grow. Online F&F become dominant as I add old and new contacts. Become much more careful and thoughtful in what I say leading to a lock down on content and status.

A response to the new p rivacy policy for mobile from GSMA http://www.gsmworld.com/our-work/public-policy/mobile_privacy.htm as I agree that there is a need: to move away from compliance, for consistency, and to help the user manage and make decisions. Here are the proposed guidelines (they are seeking wide input and reflections by June 10 th 2011. Here is how to add your views via email to pwalshe@gsm.org or mobileprivacy@gsm.org ---- My personal view is that the issue ultimately will not be about the policy framework as set out as it is already rounded, professional, grown-up, workable and practicable but will rest on four other issues: who will crack the UI to make this work, local preference, contract law and policing/ enforcement. The UI . In many ways this is where it all starts and finishes and the question is that when Apple solve the UI problem for privacy policy will they licence something really unique for everyone and the common good or will they lock it up in ...