I was reading this blogpost from the This Is Me project website with interest. In it the www.123people.com was mentioned as a place that aggregate stuff about you. I thought I'd give it a try.

It found loads of stuff about me, which I really liked. All my academic endavours was there, and plenty of the webservices that I use were also mentioned.

BUT There was on big problem. My facebook account! I know that there is approximately 2 Karsten Lundqvist people in this world. Me and a younger person in Norway. Now obviously I don't mind that, and he usually doesn't clutter my online identity. But when 123people put his account as being my account, I get quite suspect as to what algorithms they use in their processes. First of all, he is very young, compared to me, and probably doesn't have too many academic credentials unless he is a Norwegian wonder kid (Sorry Karsten if you are… And good luck, you might get them later on, something I can only encourage!!) Secondly his profile doesn't have as many friends as mine (just), but most importantly, it doesn't look like any of his friends are in my linkedin network (which they do display as being my profile), and I do have several of my facebook friends in my linkedin network – maybe that should have been a clue?

Actually the only clue to why they select this profile (and not both) is that his name is an exact match, and I also use my middle name in my facebook profile. This is quite frankly a method of selection that #fail!!