the contemporary shopping lifestyle

In this day and age it’s becoming ever more important to manage the perceptions that others have of us. This is even true in an age of ubiquitous media, social networking, insta-uploads, tagging and blogging. Before you know it, that heat of the moment comment or deed can be captured by someone’s digital camera or video and broadcast out to the whole world via, Facebook, twitter, or blog posts. And once it’s out there it’s out there for good. Understanding how much of ourselves is online for public viewing is itself difficult to determine - who has time to trawl all the social networking sites trying to track down any personal content we may have had ’shared’ to the world by our unwitting friends (or ‘witting’ [is that a word?] foes). In this article I will describe two ways you can track your online presence; one DIY approach and one using a new startup that will do the work for you.

The quick and dirty way to find out what the Web has on you is to set up a Google alert. Google alerts are automatic keyword searches that run at specified intervals and any such search will send you the results straight to your email inbox. For example, I have google alerts set up for my name, my blog and also several keywords that relate to the content of my blog. Every day I get an email from google that informs me if any new content has been made that features any of the keywords I specify.

The second, and more comprehensive approach is to use one of the many up and coming companies out there that provide several different ways to track and manage your online presence. One such company, called Garlik, will look you up online and see what’s out there for public consumption. On their website they claim: “Garlik’s DataPatrol helps people take control of their personal information and protect themselves against identity theft and financial fraud…”.

The research Garlik has done shows how such online personal information can and has been used:

Recent research has shown that more and more [people] are making decisions based on digital status. Already 16% have chosen their new home based on how their prospective neighbours appear online. 1 in 5 (20%) have researched a prospective boss online before accepting a job and 32% have searched online to find out more about trades people and professionals, from plumbers to lawyers, before hiring them to do a job.

Once you sign up to their services, you get:

• Continuous monitoring of the Web and other Internet sources for your personal and sensitive information
• Weekly report updates with easy to use tools to manage your results
• Alerts if we find your personal and sensitive information exposed online
• Quarterly report on your local area
• Expert support & advice if your personal information is at risk

Garlick provides tools for companies, or individuals and even a neat little Facebook app called QDOS that will give you a broad overview of your online profile across four dimensions:

• Popularity

Who you know and the extent of your online network.

• Impact

How much people listen to what you say online.

• Activity

What you do online e.g. shop, chat, blog.

• Individuality

How easy you are to find online according to your name, your age etc…

So if your having difficulties changing jobs, gaining a promotion, selling stuff on Ebay or Amazon, or even getting a date!, you may want to check out what the WWW is saying about you…after all, online you’re nothing but a number, and numbers are the easiest thing in the world to track…

About the Author

Steve Munroe works as a technology consultant at IBM, He lives in the UK, runs, plays guitar and once, long ago did a PhD in computer science.

Steve is the author of the Blog: Work-Life Innovation, which explores ways of working smarter and living fuller. The blog focuses on working creatively in order to find the space both temporally and psychologically to be able to enjoy the really important things in life, which for Steve are: family, learning, travel, excitement, health and creativity.