Hello all,
Our technical team will be performing scheduled site maintenance on October 15, 2011 between 3am EST and 7am EST. We don’t expect any problems with the website per se, but wanted to make sure our users and fans know that we may have some downtime (we are predicting a maximum of 10-15 minutes if it actually happens). Stay tuned to the PeekYou Blog for updates and additional information and thanks for your understanding!
Sincerely,
The PeekYou.com Team
PeekYou Education Series: How Do I Increase My PeekScore?
This blog entry here is the first installment of our PeekYou Education Series, devised to help our users better understand how information is found by search engines such as PeekYou.com, and also how an individual can control the size of their online identity. In this post, we will discuss the PeekScore and tell you how you can increase yours.
What is PeekScore?
PeekScore is a number from one to ten which quantifies the size of an individual’s current online life, and measures the breadth and scope of his or her digital footprint (or, the lasting mark he or she has left on the public web). With PeekScore, PeekYou aims to answer the question “who has the largest online presence?” A number of the facets of an individual’s online life are factored in when calculating his or her PeekScore, such as whether or not the individual in question owns a personal or business web domain, the number of social networks to which he or she belongs and the number of friends or followers on those networks, the ratio of Twitter followers to the number of people being followed, the amount of content being produced both via social media and personal websites and/or blogs, the number of press and news articles which make mention of the individual in question as well as the scope and reach of the media outlets and/or blogs behind the coverage, and so forth. All of these factors contribute to an individual’s unique score, which can fluctuate up or down depending on how much public information a search engine, such as PeekYou, can find at a given time.
Why does PeekScore matter?
PeekScore provides a way to gauge, at a glance, an individual’s level of digital prominence. This simple metric can quickly tell you, with real accuracy, how large or small an individual’s digital footprint is. While some prominent media figures and celebrities carry a healthy PeekScore even without directly contributing much to their digital footprints (just due to the sheer amount of media coverage they receive), for the vast majority of individuals the size of their PeekScore is almost entirely within their own control.
One real incentive for increasing one’s PeekScore, and leaving a bigger footprint in the digital realm, is the inherent value in asserting an individual identity, and standing out from the ever increasing pack in cyberspace. The same advantage there is to distinguishing oneself in day to day life translates to the online realm as well, particularly as the two become more and more integrated as the years pass. On the web, the identities from which to be distinguished are more obscure and easily confused with one another than they are offline, so the value for many of clearly announcing “this is me” can be considerable. For example, if someone looks for you on a public web search engine such as PeekYou – particularly if your name is a relatively common one (and it doesn’t have to necessarily be all that common, either) – your facts, figures, thoughts, accomplishments, interests, and foibles could potentially be confused with those of another who shares your name. One might easily see how this could be undesirable.
A well defined and unambiguous online presence can eliminate unwanted confusion in many ways, and it can provide you a bit more control over how you’re perceived, not just in the eyes of your ex from junior high school, but also perhaps a potential employer, or a potential customer, or a long lost relative, or an old friend by whom you would actually like to be reached.
For individuals who wish to have a diminished or more obscure online presence, the converse is also true, and the PeekScore is still a relevant metric. Those who choose to retain a level of anonymity online, and maintain strict controls over what they share on the web, will find their PeekScore small or quickly shrinking.
I Want a Higher PeekScore!
Increasing one’s PeekScore is rather simple. The more content you share and provide online, the higher your PeekScore. Below is a condensed list of a few different ways you can increase your PeekScore:
Start a public blog and update it with new posts frequently. Creating an online presence is only the start, you have to maintain it as well.
Be open and active on social networks, as a public social media presence will impact your PeekScore positively and directly.
Own a domain, either personal or business-related.
Maintain a few social network accounts. The more accounts you are active on, the higher your score.
When doing any and all of the above, always be mindful of what you are sharing and who can see it. Make sure you are comfortable with your privacy settings on your various social media accounts, and remember that the “public web” means just that; it’s public. Having a robust PeekScore, and leaving a big digital footprint, needn’t be synonymous with being exposed to the point of discomfort. There are numerous advantages to existing prominently online, and being easily searchable, but remember that you have say over what those searches will ultimately show.
We hope you will use your own PeekScore as a tool for showing off your digital presence and online prominence. Look for more updates over the next few months as we continue to evolve our PeekScore product.
Sincerely,
The PeekYou.com Team
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In today’s Washington Post, PeekYou’s General Manager of Product, Josh Mackey, was quoted in an article about Google’s newly unveiled Google Wallet. You can check out the story here.
Today, PeekYou’s CEO Michael Hussey, GM of Product Josh Mackey and GM of PeekYou.com Raj Ajrawat were featured on www.semanticweb.com regarding PeekYou’s search engine technology, our matching algorithm and the vision for PeekYou in the future. Here is a small excerpt from the article:
“Using public data on the Web, the company has been building an index matching URLs to individuals. That is, it has developed its own algorithm to look at web pages for specific things that help it identify whether that data is associated with a particular individual – real names or user names, outbound links to other social sites or blogs, work or school affiliations, for example. To accomplish that, it has to be smart enough to match to an individual a LinkedIn profile that lists the user’s region with a Myspace one that includes the user’s city but not region – oh, and let’s raise the stakes by doing it for individuals with common names like John Smith. Some 50 or 60 queries might have to be run to match up and two given URLs.”
To read the entire article by Jennifer Zaino, head over to www.semanticweb.com.
Over the next few months, PeekYou will be rolling out a series of blog posts known as the “PeekYou Education Series.” Our goal with these posts is to give our users the ability to understand how search engines like PeekYou find public information online and to raise the general level of awareness that users should have when it comes to the information that we share and consume everyday. We feel that many times our users and other individuals across the web do not necessarily understand how keeping their privacy settings open, or sending out a tweet to the public web, can be picked up by various sources across the web. All of us here at PeekYou feel its important that users get as much education and information as possible about how all of these various components of the web work, allowing them to make a better, more educated decision when it comes to sharing information online and posting information to the public web.
This series was sparked by the comments and feedback from users that we receive everyday, mostly from users who are upset or shocked to find so much information about themselves in one location. While we think it is not a bad thing at all to be public and to share your information with others freely, we want to ensure (through these posts) that consumers and users have the tools and knowledge to navigate the online world. After all, knowledge is power, and we want to empower our users with information.
Further to this point, we also see a big shift happening online, whereby people are starting to recognize “Identity” as being separate by connected to “Privacy”: You can have a robust online identity and yet still remain private in many ways. This shift happening across the web is one of the reasons our CEO Michael Hussey and our GM of Product Josh Mackey recently attended the PII 2011 Conference (privacy identity innovation) in San Francisco, CA last week.
Stay tuned for more posts in the PeekYou Education Series that will be going on throughout the summer. Feel free to engage with us through Twitter and our Facebook page, as well as our blog.
For the past couple of days PeekYou’s CEO, Michael Hussey, and Josh Mackey, our General Manager of Business and Product Development, have been in San Francisco attending the pii2011 (privacy identity innovation) conference. While there, Mike and Josh have had the incredible opportunity to meet with the leaders of other companies who share PeekYou’s commitment to providing consumers with more control over their personal information, as well as sharing our dedication to better educating users about who can see what they put online, and where it can wind up. Whether consumers want to increase their online presence or remain largely anonymous, we believe that choice should be their own. Mike and Josh have been heartened to be spending face-to-face time with others in our industry who share this vision. All of us here at PeekYou are looking forward to continuing, deepening, and acting upon the discussions initiated this week, and in the weeks and months ahead even more intensely focusing our energies on increasing consumer choice and awareness, in the areas of online privacy and beyond.
For more information about PeekYou and the conference, follow Mike and Josh on Twitter!
The following is a post written by PeekYou’s General Manager of Product, Josh Mackey.
What would happen if at a school’s talent show some parents stood up and started heckling the child playing the piano or dancing in front of them? “You’re awful!” or “You call yourself a dancer?” For one thing, it would never happen. And if it did, the rest of the audience would turn on the heckler and defend the 13-year-old performer. Even if every parent in the audience inwardly agreed that the child was talentless, they would keep their opinion to themselves for the time being and clap at the end of the performance. Why? Because of the negative consequences of behaving uncivilly—to one’s reputation and even to one’s standing in the community. Common sense, right? How come then common decency is thrown out the door in the case of Rebecca Black’s YouTube performance? Why can so many people not refrain from publicly ridiculing this 13-year-old girl trying to be a singer and songwriter?
What explains the essential difference in behavior when the medium is the Internet? What changes people when they interact online? Why do they behave so savagely so often? Could it be the anonymous username? Could it be that when they hide behind an alias, they feel invisible, and hence not accountable for their actions? Is the anonymous username the modern-day Ring of Gyges?
Going by a username instead of one’s real name is attractive to those who:
1) Value privacy above all else
Sure, a username gives you some extra privacy, but of what use is such privacy? If you can’t publicly stand by what you do online because doing so would damage your reputation, then maybe just don’t do it. Show some integrity and stand by your comments on an Internet forum. There are legitimate concerns over privacy, I don’t deny it, but ultimately people need to understand that public identity and privacy are two different notions, and that you can declare who you are without violating your own privacy. It’s not even hard to manage. Simple steps go a long way; steps such as thinking twice before posting personal details, and keeping off the record birthdays, phone numbers, street addresses, medical and financial records, and SSNs. Disseminating this kind of information on the Internet can be disastrous to your privacy. Divulging what your favorite music bands or movies are? Not so much.
2) Seek free speech for political reasons
Free speech is another catch cry in behalf of the anonymous web, and sure, if you live in Iran, and wish to speak out against the government, then you have a case. But if you yearn for “free speech” as nothing more than a cover for bad-mouthing people while not exposing your identity, then your tirade about anonymity and free speech on the Internet doesn’t garner much sympathy from me.
3) Wish to live vicariously
Some people need the web to be a fantasy land, a valve of release.
I understand people not divulging their real identity on sites like IMVU or Second Life. Doing otherwise would defeat the purpose of such virtual worlds premised on escaping reality. But should we commiserate with someone who wants to live vicariously as a bully on YouTube, or as a jerk on TechCrunch or the WSJ? I think not.
4) Are bad players
Simply put, some people are straight up bad players who are planning to do illegal or immoral things online, which can’t possibly be done without the use of an anonymous username or fake identity. Think “How to Catch a Predator.”
I predict that one day a transparent online identity will become the norm, and lurking behind anonymous usernames, the exception. More and more people will put a premium on interactions with other people whom they can identify, and who can be held accountable for their online actions. One’s Internet reputation will become almost as valuable as one’s offline reputation. Even today, we’d all rather know who left that comment, wrote that article, sent that email, or is selling this car. It’s already happening and, in my opinion, it’s the main reason why Quora has been so successful: because it requires some form of verified, public identity. More illustrations of the trend include successful sites such as About.me, card.ly, flavors.com, etc. On the Internet, we want to deal with people of clout, who don’t hide their name and face. “BigBizDog88″ is so 1999.
The web is emerging from its chaotic and troubled adolescence, where anything goes and you can be anyone or no one. There are more and more people to interact with nowadays, and on many more levels than in the past. The potential for clutter grows exponentially, along with the size of the Internet itself. So pretty soon, we won’t have the time of day to give to anonymous nobodies. My prediction is that in the not-too-distant future, a deep chasm will open throughout the Internet. On one side of it will be a transparent market of ideas, where people network and transact with their cards on the table and virtual name tags on. And on the other side will be the black market, so to speak, of shady dealings, casual encounters, cyber bullying, and other unsavory activities, all of which thrive only under the shade of the anonymous username.
Going by an anonymous username, even for what are today considered legitimate reasons (i.e., privacy considerations and the like), will be considered your “opt out” from the open and accountable Internet and will leave you on the dark side of the chasm. Unfortunately, even if you have the best intentions, you’ll be left in the company of the BigDog’s and hotdude’s of the web, untrusted and ignored, like spam.
Josh Mackey
@joshmackey
GM Product at PeekYou
Today, PeekYou’s CEO Michael Hussey was featured in the eCommerce Times regarding Google’s newer and more social upgrade to the Google Docs suite of products. Michael pointed out that it was a wise move for Google, especially given Microsoft’s dominance in the Office Productivity Suite of software (MS Office), stating, “Anything that Google can do to make Docs more collaborative it has to do to stay competitive with Microsoft.” He also adds, “This is a natural evolution for collaboration because of the number of people who work online, who work in remote locations, and who work in larger and larger groups.” Google’s move to go more social is not surprising of course, seeing as how that’s what everyone is doing these days.
You can read Erika Murphy’s full article here.
PeekYou’s CEO, Michael Hussey, sat down with Tai Hernandez of MyFOX NY to discuss social media issues and online privacy. Michael made a great point about Facebook giving users the controls they need to manage their own privacy online and that users need to be aware of the options that they have when it comes to online privacy and information sharing. You can watch the whole video on MyFOX NY’s website here.
Let us know what you think!
You will notice today that we have implemented changes to our footer’s design and layout at www.peekyou.com. The new footer has some new sections, such as “Top Search by Profession”, “Popular Searches,” “About PeekYou,” and “Peek by Country.” Each of these sections serves a specific function to our users. Our main goal was to simply clean up the look and feel of the footer, thereby making it easy for our users to navigate through page content that we have and also discover more information that we have on our site.
Let us know what you think. Do you like the new footer?