identity work and personas

The savvy Sarah Lageson sends word of Personas, an MIT project created by Aaron Zinman. Personas uses sophisticated natural language processing to create a data portrait of one's aggregated online identity. The idea is to show folks how the internet takes them apart and reassembles them -- sort of a critique of data mining embedded within a cool data mining project. Simply stop by the site, launch personas, and let the digit counters fall. Then reflect or recoil as your online world flashes before you (cranking vintage Kraftwerk at volume may enhance the effect). Sarah sent me the personalized screenshot below, but personas is really more about process than product.