I don’t often point people to online game-like interactive thingies, but this one has my endorsement. Give yourself a few minutes to watch the process. It can be gruesome:
Personas is a component of the Metropath(ologies) exhibit, recently on display at the MIT Museum by the Sociable Media Group from the MIT Media Lab (Please contact us if you want to show it next!). 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.
If it is not gruesome enough for you, enter my name, you’ll be shocked.
Hint: If using a small screen, a) run this in its own firefox window, and b) use F11 to maximize the screen if requested by the application. Then, when it’s done, you’ll have to close the window with brute force because F11 probably won’t work from within the flash display that will have filled the screen. So Alt-F4 or Alt-Tab your way out of there.
Good luck.
Hat Tip: Joe