The world is now so firmly divided into people who Google everything and those who rarely think of it that it's almost become an alternative definition of intelligence. I was sitting on the tube the other night facing somebody wearing a security pass for an educational institution. It had their name and picture on it. They'd made no effort to conceal it. They got off at my station. With nothing else to do while waiting for the bus I looked on the web on my iPhone, entered just their title and first name plus the name of the institution into Google and within a couple of seconds I had their CV. I do things like that because I'm a nosy hack but it would be just as easy for somebody who wished to steal their identity. The person who would probably be most disturbed by this prospect would probably be the person who didn't make the basic effort to conceal the pass in the first place. If they were in the Googling classes they would make sure they hid it.

This post actually starts with a story of someone who had been wondering for a while about how to get in touch with her father who she'd never met. She'd managed to trace his name but nothing more.

Then someone suggested Googling him and there he was...

More people have web shadows than know it. And many more have a sense that they have a web presence, but don't connect it with the power of search engines and social networks to unearth information about them.

Just because you are aware of Google and use it doesn't mean you use it to find information about people. Yet. The behaviour isn't familiar to everyone yet, they think of it as a work or study tool, not an extra sense, a kind kind of intelligence, as David puts it.

Soon we will all be members of what David calls "the Googling classes" and it is going to make us think differently about everything from showing our name tags to leaving reviews on websites under our own names.

Research from Google shows that even experienced users of social networks often don’t realise what they are sharing with whom.

In a presentation that has gained a great deal of attention over the past week among in the web industry, Google researcher Paul Adams talks about how we have problems translating our real world social networks of friends and colleagues on to the web.

The presentation goes on to make some sophisticated arguments about social networks, but opens with a true story that is relevant to us all. It concerns a lady called Debbie whom Paul interviewed as part of his research.

Paul shows how Debbie has several groups in her social networks. People she met when she lived in San Diego, ones she met in Los Angeles, her family and more recently kids she teaches swimming to at the local pool.

When Debbie lived in San Diego she used to enjoy going to a bar with some friends where they had wild parties. They sometimes post photos of nights out at the bar which she loves, as they remind her of her time there, and she comments on them.

During the Google research interview she realised for the first time that by commenting or liking the photos they would be seen by the kids in her swimming class. Needless to say, she was really upset.

There are two reasons that this happened to Debbie and has probably happened to all of us. First, social networks like Facebook treat all of our connections as “friends”, the same type of contact. As discussed in Me and My Web Shadow and in the recent post about privacy settings, you can set up different friend groups to control who sees what – but it is complex.

The other reason Paul discusses, is that when we post anything on the web, from status updates to photos and comments we usually do it with a particular set of people in mind, and in fact it will reach much broader group. This is why, Paul says, we get so frustrated with people posting things on Facebook that we think are deadly dull.

The obscure hobby of a colleague can be really dull to hear about for us, but they are posting it with their network of friends who are also into that hobby in mind. (I imagine some of my Facebook friends must yawn when they see me posting about yet another Sunday morning mountain bike ride, for instance.)

It is important to note that Google is trying to find a way to develop a rival service to Facebook, so criticising its service is very much in the interest of it and its employees, like Paul Adams. However, this story and the broad points made in this presentation chime with a key  message of Me and My Web Shadow: it is important to understand how privacy settings and filters work on social networks.

If you are interested in finding out more, have a look at his presentation (below). It is, by the way, an excellent example of how to create a highly useful document and share it on SlideShare – just look at how many views, comments and Tweets it has received:

The Real Life Social Network v2View more documents from Paul Adams.

Share and Enjoy:

• 

• 

• 

• 

• 

• 

• 

• 

Q: What’s the number one thing people want their browser to do?

Written on February 11, 2010 by Antony Mayfield in Uncategorized

0 Comments - Leave a comment!

A: Block ads.

Sometimes it’s worth reminding ourselves of the simple truths about online media and marketing.

Like the fact that, given the choice, a lot of people don’t want banner ads, pop-ups and other sundry promotional interruptions getting in the way of whatever they are dong.

I was reminded of this when Google kindly turned on the ability to add extensions for the Chrome browser on Macs today.

Number one on the list of things I could download to improve my browser was Ad-Block…

And down there at the bottom you can see another version. Half a million unique users that don’t see a thing…

ShareThis

Tags: ad-blocker, advertising, chrome, extensions, google, webshadows

« Previous Post

There are no comments yet. Be the first and leave a response!

Leave a Reply

Click here to cancel reply.

Trackback URL http://www.antonymayfield.com/2010/02/11/q-whats-the-number-one-thing-people-want-their-browser-to-do/trackback/

Additional comments powered by BackType