communication

Free web services like Yahoo or Facebook or Gmail are not really free.  Subscribers pay for the service, just not in ways that they understand.  Data is enormously valuable, and meta-data (information about data) is rich with potential uses.  MIT makes a tool available to you that lets you glimpse the potential of this vast database that you are trading for "free" web services.

Here, for example, are my results of letting MIT's Immersion tool peruse my Gmail account for 7 years of meta-data.  (Click to see a larger version.)



It identifies these networks of people with whom I communicate.

• Autism: The brown network in the middle are other adults with autism that I know.  Curious that it puts them front and center, perhaps because I'm more likely to send emails to this network than the others?
• Home: The large blue network on the left are my landlords, an extra roommate, and the people they know.
• Bicycling: The pink network are the outdoorsy folk that I know, although it's been a long time since I've had the energy to join them.
• Gamers: The green network are the other gamers that I have known.
• Faeries/Occupy: The red network on the right side strangely connects both the Radical Faeries and the Occupy Minnesota crowd.  Who knew?
• Work: The small purple network confuses me.  I think maybe it's related to coworkers from a few jobs back.  I'm not sure.
• Bears: The small grey network at top is also confusing.  I think it might be two local Bears.  "B"?  Who is "B"?
• Everyone else is listed as solitary orange dots, lacking connection to my other contacts.

The analysis also shows that I receive emails that vastly outnumber the emails that I send.  It's approximately 10:1 odds.  It also shows that I've grown increasingly isolated over the years, trending toward fewer and fewer new contacts.  It would be nice if I could combine data from the various email accounts (Gmail, Outlook, Earthlink, Yahoo) that I've used for a larger view of my communication patterns.

Anyway, this is the kind of information that we voluntarily give to companies in exchange for free web services.  We also give this information to the NSA, although I wouldn't call that transfer a willing exchange.  When the NSA says that they're "only" collecting meta-data, trying to downplay its significance... don't believe a word of it.

All data is valuable.