My Thoughts On Social Media

I was thinking about all the data we lifestream. What does this data say about us?  How valuable is this data in the right corporation’s hands?  Bookmarks are very telling of a individuals mindset, habits, and interests. The same interpretations can be made about the data we lifestream.  A person’s digital fingerprint is a potential gold mine of data for various industries.

Upon analyzing my own lifestream on FriendFeed, you could tell the following things about me:

Music:

My digital music fingerprint shows that I stream classic rock and hip hop. While I like many types of music, I tend to listen to these two genres the most, at least when I’m online.  Music industries are you listening?

Twitter:

Tweets show that I’m a father. It also shows that there is at least one child in my household. Babies R Us are you listening?

Pictures:

These pictures show my beautiful daughter Kaylee. It pretty much echos the tweet. The visual just completes a potential new customer profile. What’s the latest and greatest in baby products for a now almost four month old infant?

RSS:

My profile reveals that I read and follow quite a few bloggers in the tech and social media space.  Technology and social media are the dominating factors on my lifestream.

Read my feeds. That should give you a good idea of the products I might be interested in. If you dug into my digital fingerprint further, you would easily find your hook.

Bookmarks:

My bookmarks are always a good primary indicator of my mindset at the moment. They chronicle my current interests, and also serve for future reading and exploration. As a side note, bookmarking can also be misleading.

My blog is titled  “My Thoughts On Social Media”. This is my main focus of interest.

Behavioral targeted advertising is nothing new in social media. Tracking and targeting can easily be done now with lifestreaming and rss, as opposed to traditional cookies.

What does your digital fingerprint say about you. More importantly, what information are you broadcasting to corporations?

Related Posts

• August 28, 2008 -- Fake following in social media: Yay or Nay?
• August 21, 2008 -- The bookmarking system on FriendFeed
• August 19, 2008 -- Getting social with bookmarking on FriendFeed.
• August 8, 2008 -- Viral on FriendFeed
• August 6, 2008 -- The last few days on FriendFeed